MORAL  EVOLUTION.     Crown  8vo,  gilt  top,  $2.00. 
INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS.     i2mo,  gilt  top,  $1.25. 

HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN,  AND  COMPANY 

BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 


INEQUALITY  AND 
PROGRESS 

BY 

GEORGE  HARRIS 

PROFESSOR  IN  ANDOVKR  THEOLOGICAL  SEMINARY 


BOSTON   AND   NEW   YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN   AND  COMPANY 
(Cfre  fctoetfite  $re#, 
1897 


COPYREGHT  1897   BY  GEORGE  HARRIS 
ALL   RIGHTS   RESERVED 


To 
J.  A.  H. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP. 

I.  PREFATORY 

II.  EXISTING  AND  EXPECTED  EQUALITY 

III.  EQUALITY  BY  BROAD  COMPARISONS  .        .        .14 

IV.  TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION        ...  21 
V.  .ECONOMIC  EQUALITY  A  CHIMERA       .        .  32  — 

VI.  EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  EDUCATION      .  40 
""""VTI.  EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     .        .50 

VIII.  .A  FAIR  CHANCE 63 

IX.  VARIETY 69 

<-  *    X.  PROGRESS  PRODUCES  VARIETY         ...  74  ' 

XL  PROGRESS  AND  WANTS 82 

*  XII.  VARIETY  PRODUCES  PROGRESS        ...  87 

^  XIII.  SUPERIORITY 90  ^ 

XIV.  ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY       .        .        .  95  ^ 

XV.  RESENTMENT  OF  SUPERIORITY  AND  INFERIORITY  110  "~i 

XVI.  Two  KINDS  OF  DISCONTENT       ....  116  -~ 

XVII.  ADMIRATION  AND  INSPIRATION        .        .        .  123 

XVIII.  THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS     ....  133 

XIX.  UNIQUENESS  AND  UNITY 146 

XX.  CHRISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY  ....  155  -/ 


INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 


X? 


PREFATORY 


EQUALITY  is  a  charmed  word.  It  fascinates  re- 
formers. Prophets  that  watch  for  signs  and  por- 
tents as  they  that  watch  for  the  morning  are  almost 
unanimous  in  predictions  of  a  widening  social 
equality.  When  the  word  can  no  longer  be  used 
indiscriminately*  it  is  still  retained  as  defining  an 
indispensable  principle  of  progress.  This  and  that 
necessary  qualification  may  be  granted ;  it  may  be 
smitten  on  either  cheek  with  staggering  blows,  but 
it  is  sure  to  come  up  sanguine  and  smiling.  It 
has  a  charmed  life.  If  it  is  pushed  out  of  the 
door  it  comes  back  through  the  window.  Almost 
every  social  theory  gets  it  in  somewhere,  as  a  fun- 
damental condition  of  human  welfare.  A  century 
ago  there  were  many  who  advocated  universal 
equality,  by  which  they  meant  that  all  men  should 
be  equal  in  all  respects.  To-day  there  are  many 
who  advocate  equalizing,  not  in  all,  but  in  certain 


2  INEQUALITY  AND  PKOGKE&S 

respects,  as  the  ideal  state  towards  which  society 
should  move.  They  regard  inequality  as  the  chief 
obstacle  to  welfare  and  advancement.  Against 
in^uality  the  heaviest  guns  of  reform  are  pointed. 
S*iss5*3rrogress  is  thought  to  consist  chiefly  in  a  nearer 
Approach  to  political,  economic,  social,  and  intel- 
/lectual  equality.  Even  when  the  difficulty  of  real- 
/izing  it  is  recognized,  the  conviction  remains  strong 
that  it  is  desirable,  and  that  effort  should  con- 
l^stantly  be  directed  towards  gaining  the  little  or 
the  much  that  is  attainable,  —  the  more  the  better, 
—  as  though  there  could  be  no  question  in  a  sane 
mind  that  inequality  is  in  itself  a  source  of  evil. 

There  is  undoubtedly  some  truth  —  possibly  a 
half-truth  —  in  an  idea  so  persistent.  But  discrim- 
ination is  needed  in  the  use  of  a  term  which  is 
capable  of  widely  different  applications,  and  which 
means  much  or  little  according  to  the  context. 

I  believe  that  a  service  may  be  rendered  by  go- 
ing back  of  various  theories  to  certain  fundamental 
facts  of  human  nature  and  human  development, 
and  thus  learning  what  may  and  what  may  not  be 
taken  for  granted.  Before  social  and  political 
theories  are  constructed,  primal  truths  concerning 
the  constitution,  inheritance,  and  differentiation  of 
men  should  be  recognized.  It  is  often  said  that  the 
historic  sense  should  be  cultivated  by  the  leaders 
and  reformers  of  society;  that  they  should  first 


PREFATORY  3 

understand  the  development  of  the  nations  through 
the  centuries  of  history.  It  might  also  be  said 
that  the  ethnologic  and  anthropologic  sense  should 
be  cultivated.  As  knowledge  of  history,  going  1 
back  for  a  perspective,  gives  broader  views  which 
moderate  expectation  of  sudden  changes,  so  know- 
ledge of  the  laws  of  human  selection  and  inherit- 
ance, which  lie  beneath  the  movements  of  history, 
corrects  theories  through  adjustment  of  facts. 

The  reader  need  not,  however,  be  alarmed  with 
apprehension  of  technical  investigation  and  tiresome 
research,  nor  with  threats  of  an  excursion  into  pre- 
historic times.  This  small  volume  is  not  a  scien- 
tific, a  philosophical,  nor  an  economic  essay.  The 
facts  to  be  considered  are  patent  to  the  observation 

of  all.      The  rnflthod  ifl  ftrnpirinfy^  ppf. 


illustrative,  not  theoretical.  Science  and  philo- 
sophy are  drawn  upon  so  far  as  they  serve  the  pur- 
poses of  the  discussion.  Social  changes  which  have 
occurred,  and  social  programmes  which  are  pro- 
posed, are  frequently  mentioned.  But  the  book  is 
no  more  nor  less  than  a  series  of  observations  and 
reflections  which,  from  various  points  of  view,  ex- 
hibit the  variety  and  the  unity  of  men. 

I  am  not  concerned  about  the  applications  of 
my  conclusions  to  social  schemes.  It  may  be  that 
those  who  cling  to  equality  as  a  watchword  will 
find  support  in  the  facts  and  tendencies  pointed 


4  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

out  in  the  following  pages.  It  may  be  that  some 
modification  of  theories  of  equality  is  the  more 
natural  application.  But  the  bearing  of  my  opin- 
ions on  particular  theories  is  only  illustrative  and  in- 
cidental. Least  of  all  do  I  undertake  to  construct 
a  definite  and  complete  programme  of  the  coming 
society.  Ignorance  alone  has  confidence  enough 
to  attempt  that  which  is  possible  only  to  omni- 
science. Yet  certain  lines  can  be  traced  down  the 
past  and  into  the  present  clearly  enough  to  show 
the  general  direction  they  will  probably  take  in 
the  future. 

The  title  of  the  book  is  chosen,  not  as  a  chal- 
lenge exactly,  but  as  the  most  convenient  designa- 
tion to  set  against  certain  errors  which  are  mixed 
up  with  notions  of  equality,  and  to  indicate  where 
the  emphasis  of  the  discussion  lies.  If  the  title 
were  expanded  to  define  the  purpose  of  the  book 
^x  precisely,  it  would  run:  inequality,  a  condition  of 
•  progress :  but  that  is  too  long  a  title  for  so  small 
a  book,  and  is  sufficiently  implied  in  the  more 
general  statement.  Although  the  negative  term, 
inequality,  does  not  cover  the  positive  and  con- 
structive portions  of  the  book,  it  is  a  truthful  sign- 
board planted  at  the  entrance  of  a  path  which 
will  pass  in  due  time  from  the  lower  levels  of 
criticism  to  the  higher  levels  of  progress. 


II 

EXISTING  AND   EXPECTED   EQUALITY 

THERE  is  an  essential  equality  of  men  which 
already  exists.  By  constitution  all  are  alike  or 
equal  in  those  endowments  which  make  them  hu- 
man beings  as  distinguished  from  animals,  as  wilt 
appear  more  fully  in  the  next  section.  In  civilized 
countries  all  citizens  have  certain  rights  and  privi- 
leges which  have  been  acquired  in  the  course  of 
history.  It  is  believed  by  many,  and  may  be  con- 
ceded, that  the  betterment  of  men  hitherto  has  co- 
incided with  those  equalizing  processes  which  have 
occurred./  It  is  also  believed,  but  is  not  necessa- 
rily conceded,  that  further  progress  depends  on  a  j 
nearer  approach  to  equality  in  certain  respects.  ^  " 

Existing  equality  is  commonly  and  conveniently  - 
defined  as  civil  and  political.  That  which  is  yet 
to  be  gained  is  now  most  frequently  defined  as 
equality  of  opportunity,  although  some  expect  more 
than  that,  even  complete  equality.  This  is  a  rather 
broad  generalization,  yet  the  line  of  division  is 
distinct  enough  to  be  seen.  On  one  side,  the  side 
of  civil  and  political  equality,  there  is  the  protec- 


6  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

tion  of  law  and  the  right  to  vote  for  rulers  and 
measures,  without  any  distinction  of  persons.  On 
the  other  side,  the  side  of  opportunity,  are  econo- 
mic, intellectual,  and  social  conditions,  and  on  that 
side  there  are  marked  distinctions  of  possessions, 
class,  and  culture.  On  the  hither  side  of  citizen- 
ship, equality  exists.  On  the  yonder  side  of  mate- 
rial conditions,  education  and  leisure  for  enjoyment 
and  improvement,  decided  inequality  exists.  There 
are  many  who  maintain  that  on  that  yonder  side 
.effort  should  be  made  to  produce  a  nearer  approach 
,to  equality,  if  not  of  actual  possession  and  enjoy- 
^nent,  at  least  of  opportunity  to  enjoy  and  pos- 
•?  sess. 

Still  further,  many  believe  that  from  the  van- 
tage-ground of  existing  civil  and  political  equality 
the  opening  of  opportunity  is  to  be  widened.  The 
leverage  of  suffrage  is  to  be  employed  for  prying 
open  closed  doors  of  privilege.  In  a  word,  demo- 
cracy can  and  should  direct  its  power  towards  those 

i  material,  educational,  aesthetic,  and  social  values 
i 

which  are  now  exclusive  by  monopoly  of  the  few, 
and  should  bring  them  within  the  reach  of  all  who 
have  the  desire  and  the  will  to  enjoy  them.  The 
belief  is  entertained  that,  should  all  doors  of  op- 
portunity be  opened,  should  those  restrictions  of 
poverty,  of  enforced  idleness,  of  inadequate  remu- 
U  neration,  and  of  ignorance  which  hold  many  in 


EXISTING  AND  EXPECTED  EQUALITY        7 

slavery  be  removed,  should  all  men  be  liberated  so 
that  no  opportunities  of  labor,  skill,  or  knowledge 
are  closed  to  them,  should  there  be  no  grant  of 
monopolies  to  favored  individuals,  should  adventi- 
tious  advantages  of   birth  and  culture  be  swept 
away,  society  would  make  enormous  advance  to- 
wards essential  equality.    The  throwing  open  of  all 
doors   of   opportunity   would,   it   is   imagined,  so  V 
greatly   diminish  difference  of   circumstance  that  I 
eventually  differences  j>l  culture  would  be^greatly  * 
reduced. 

Various  methods  for  the  overthrow  of  barriers 
and 'the  leveling  of  circumstance  are  proposed. 
Collective  production  and  sharing  of  material 
goods  is  a  method  which  has  many  advocates. 
Equalling  of  work  and  of  wealth  would,  they  be- 
lieve, remove  the  chief  obstacles  which  now  with-( 
hold  from  the  vast  majority  of  men  opportunities' 
of  enjoyment  and  culture.  Material  goods  are  not 
regarded  as  an  end  in  themselves,  but  only  as  a 
means  to  the  real  objects  of  life.  Those  who  ex- 
pend all  their  energy  in  toiling  for  bare  subsist- 
ence are  shut  off  from  the  higher  values  to  which 
all  men  are  entitled.  The  first  step  is  a  readjust- 
ment of  the  economic  system,  in  order  that  all  may 

have  sufficient  maintenance  and  sufficient  leisure  for 

4^ 
gaining  intellectual  and  aesthetic  culture.  Advocacy 

of  collectivism  employs  argument  and  statistics  in 


8  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

economic  treatises,  and  employs  imagination  in  the 
novel  to  exhibit  the  state  of  society  under  such 
widening  of  opportunity.  This  method  will  come 
forward  for  consideration  a  little  later.  It  is  indi- 
cated here  only  in  order  to  define  or  at  least  to 
suggest  the  equality  which  is  demanded  by  one 
school  of  socialists.  Another  school,  which  has 
already  been  mentioned,  does  not  demand  equal 
possession  of  material  goods,  but  does  demand 
equal  opportunity  to  gain  them  under  the  incen- 
tive of  obtaining  thereby  the  higher  values  which 
are  possible  to  the  wealthy  and  the  well  to  do.  As 
a  designation,  social  democracy  is  preferred  to 
socialism  or  collectivism,  since  it  suggests  social 
more  than  economic  values,  and  indicates  that 
democracy  is  the  power  by  which  opportunities  of 
all  kinds  can  be  equalized. 

"We  must  linger  a  moment  to  recognize  the  actual 
equality  which  has  been  roughly  characterized  as 
civil  and  political.  Equal  rights  and  equal  votes 
are  the  outcome  of  a  long  process  of  history  which 
cannot  here  be  traced.  If  it  were  followed  out, 
we  should  be  carried  back  to  the  transition  from 
the  tribe  to  the  State,  from  the  tribe  which  was  a 
compact  whole  made  up  of  men  who  were  not  re- 
garded as  individuals  having  rights  of  their  ow.n, 
to  the  State,  appearing  in  Greece  and  developed 
in  Rome,  in  which  there  was  law  establishing 


EXISTING  AND  EXPECTED  EQUALITY 

the  rights  of  persons  as  persons,  and,  after  many 
vicissitudes,  reappearing  in  the  modern  State, 
which  does  not,  like  the  ancient  State,  consist  of  a 
central  class  of  freemen  with  a  penumbra  of  slaves, 
but  includes  all  and  every  of  the  individuals  who 
occupy  its  territory ;  we  should  be  carried  back  to 
Judaism  with  its  one  personal  God  requiring  the 
obedience  of  every  person  whether  freeman  or 
slave,  and  to  Christianity,  which  recognizes  all 
men  as  sons  of  God  and  as  beings  of  immortal 
worth,  thus  stamping  every  man,  even  the  lowest,- 
with  individuality  and  infinite  worth;  we  should 
be  led  along  the  history  o£  Christendom,  and 
should  see,  even  in  the  darkness  of  the  Middle 
Ages,  and  even  in  the  monastery  with  its  emphasis 
on  the  salvation  of  the  individual  and  its  disre- 
gard of  earthly  rank  and  station,  a  prolonged 
insistence  on  the  worth  of  every  person  ;  we  should 
follow  the  course  of  the  Protestant  Keformation 
with  its  doctrine  of  justification  by  the  faith  of  the 
individual ;  we  should  perceive  the  influence  of  the 
Church  holding  its  belief  in  the  value  of  every 
person,  upon  the  State  emerging  into  democracy. 
There  is  no  dispute  about  all  this.  The  essential, 
even  the  infinite  worth  of  every  individual,  is  the 
assumption  of  Christianity  from  the  first  until  now. 
The  inclusion  of  every  individual  and  his  right  to 
protection  and  freedom  is  the  assumption  of  de- 


10  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGRESS 

,     mocracy.     To  civil  and  political  should  therefore 
be  added  religious  equality.     Upon  the  latter,  in- 

\     deed,  the  former  is  based. 

Beside  this  essential  equality  of  men  made  in 
the  image  of  God,  capable  of  knowing  him  and 
loving  him,  and  capable  of  citizenship,  of  self- 
government  in  national  life,  any  other  differentia- 
tions may  seem  of  too  slight  importance  to  be  re- 
garded. Yet  it  is  to  those  other  differentiations 
still  existing  in  society  that  the  exigent  demands 
of  social  reformers  are  directed.  And  it  is  to  the 
humbler  task  of  recognizing  and  estimating  some 
of  those  differentiations  that  this  brief  treatise  is 
devoted.  An  American  freeman  compared  with 
a  Roman  slave  has  vast  advantage,  and  seems,  as 
he  is,  a  very  different  person.  Yet  considerable 
contrast  is  apparent  when  American  voters  are 
compared  with  one  another.  A  Christian,  know- 
ing God  as  his  Father  and  himself  as  an  immortal 
being,  and  realizing  the  law  of  love  in  his  life, 
compared  with  a  superstitious  or  skeptical  pagan 
of  antiquity,  with  the  Brahmin  longing  for  extinc- 
tion of  personal  being,  and  with  fetich  worshipers 
of  Africa,  has  immense  advantage,  and  seems,  as 
he  is,  a  very  different  person.  Yet  considerable 
variations  are  apparent  when  Christians  are  com- 
pared with  one  another.  The  vast  advantage  of 
an  American  workman  over  a  Roman  slave  does 


EXISTING  AND  EXPECTED 


not  obliterate  the  contrast  between  a  modern  wage- 
earner  and  the  capitalist  who  employs  him.     The 
advantage  of  any  Christian  over  any  pagan,  of  an 
uncultivated   Christian   over  a  cultivated   pagan, 
does  not  efface  the  difference  between  a  Christian— 
laborer  and  his  Christian  employer  who  may  read 
the  same  Bible  and  worship  in  the  same  church, 
and  may  do  so  in  spirit  and  in  truth,  yet  otherwise 
are   marked    by  wide   differences   of    possession, 
culture,  tastes,  and  enjoyments.     The  existence  of 
differentiations   in   modern   democratic   Christian 
society  upon  the  basis  of  that  individuality,  that 
citizenship,  and  that  worth  as  sons  of  God  which 
all  men  have,  and  which  have  been  realized  by  the 
toil  and  struggle  of  centuries,  is  not  in  question. 
There  are  wide  contrasts  of  intellect,  taste,  and  i 
culture,  and  of  material  conditions.     To  these  our 
attention  is  turned,  yes,  is  challenged  by  the  de- 
mand for  equality  of  opportunity.     I  would  not  in 
the  least  minimize  them   merely  because  in  com- 
parison with  the  common  human  nature  and  hu- 
man rights  they  may  seem  to  be  of  little  conse- 
quence, nor  because  the  contemporaneous  are  less 
than  the  historical  differences  of  men.     Indeed,  it 
is  my  purpose  to  show  that  inequalities  are  so  con-  jj 
stitutional  and  persistent  that  the  hope  of  progress 
cannot   lie  in  the  expectation   of   obliterating   or 
greatly  reducing  them,  but  lies  in  the  expectation 


12  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  uj^Kzmg  and  harmonizing  them.  At  all  events, 
the  differences  which  actually  exist  amongst  the 
citizens  of  the  modern  State  and  amongst  the  chil- 
dren of  God  are  the  occasion  of  debated  and 
debatable  social  theories.  The  demand  for  equal- 
ity of  opportunity  is  the  demand  for  a  reduction 
of  some.  of  those  differences.  The  assumption  is 
made  that  such  equalizing  is  unquestionably  the 
condition  of  human  betterment  and  progress.  Pro- 
gress is  believed  to  consist  chiefly  in  a  nearer  ap- 
proach to  economic,  social,  and  intellectual  equality. 
This  assumption  I  make  bold  to  question.  The 
structure  of  social  reform  is,  I  believe,  built  on 
the  sand,  if  equality,  in  any  right  or  intelligible 
meaning  of  the  word,  is  the  basis.  I  propose  to 
show  the  exact  opposite.  I  contend  that  inequality 
always  has  been  and  always  will  be  the  condition 
•  ofDroress.  I  shall  arue  that  a  state  of  eualit 


.^  I  shall  argue  that  a  state  of  equality 
would  be  a  state  of  stagnation,  a  reversion  to  sav- 
agery and  the  tribe  ;  that,  should  certain  kinds  of 
equality  which  are  talked  about  and  aimed  at  be 
realized,  the  result  would  be  an  arrest  of  the 
onward  movement  of  society  ;  that  equality  of  op- 
portunity is  both  impossible  and  undesirable  ;  and 
that  progress  can  be  made  only  through  differences 
aad  unlikenesses.  \ 

Parenthetically,  it  may  be  observed  that  civil 
and  political  equality  exists   only  approximately. 


'  EXISTING  AND  EXPECTED  EQUALITY      13 

A  pm^gertied  man  has  civil  rights  which  a  man 
without  property  does  not  have.  Even  if  there 
were  no  private  property,  the  man  who  renders 
great  service  would  have  rights  as  to  place  and 
function  to  which  an  inefficient  man  would  not  be 
entitled.  Political  equality  exists  for  only  one  sex, 
and  under  an  arbitrary  limit  of  age.  A  vote  in 
Vermont  is  not  worth  as  much  as  a  vote  in  Indiana. 
It  is  a  question  whether  equal  suffrage  should  be 
allowed  in  municipal  government  or  not.  Even 
religious  equality  is  potential  only.  Not  every 
man  realizes  his  worth  and  right  as  a  child  of  God, 
,as  not  every  man  realizes  his  worth  and  right  as  a 
"citizen.  But  the  debate  is  not  at  those  points 
which  stand  on  the  hither  side  of  that  civil,  polit- 
ical, and  religious  equality  which  is  regarded  as 
practically  gained.  The  debate  is  on  the  yonder 
side  of  those  differentiations  which  pertain  to 
economic,  social,  and  intellectual  conditions. 


Ill 

EQUALITY  BY  BROAD   COMPARISONS 

IT  is  necessary  now  to  take  a  point  of  view 
pretty  well  back,  from  which  equality  and  in- 
equality may  be  measured.  Such  equality  as  ex- 
ists is  relative  only.  It  is  some  degree  of  likeness 
in  contrast  with  a  greater  degree  of  unlikeness. 
Compared  with  animals  men  $re  alike  or  equal. 
Any  man  is  more  like  any  other  man  than  any 
man  is  like  any  animal.  The  intelligent  acts  of  a 
chimpanzee  excite  wonder,  not,  as  Stevenson  says 
of  dancing  dogs  and  preaching  women,  because  it 
does  them  so  well,  but  because  it  does  them  at  all. 
A  child  capable  of  understanding  and  doing  no 
more  would  be  regarded  as  in  a  state  of  arrested 
development.  All  men  are  more  like  one  another 
than  they  are  like  animals.  The  powers  and  qual- 
ities which  men  have  in  common  distinguish  them 
clearly  from  the  most  intelligent  animals.  The 
genus  homo  is  made  up  of  individuals  who,  as 
human,  are  the  same  in  kind.  The  likeness  or 
equality  is  perceived  by  comparison. 

This  inclusive  likeness  and  exclusive  contrast  is 


EQUALITY  BY  BEOAJ)  COMPARISONS       15 

not  as  marked  in  comparison  of  the  different  races 
of  men,  even  when  the  distant  extremes  are  taken. 
Possibly  any  Englishman  is  more  like  any  other 
Englishman  than  any  Englishman  is  like  any  Pata- 
gonian,  although  the  native  ability  of  some  savage 
chiefs  and  the  dense  stupidity  of  some  English- 
men raises  a  question.  There  are,  however,  cer- 
tain characteristics  of  race  which  all  its  members  N 
possess  and  which  are  not  possessed  by  another 
race.  Compared  with  Patagonians  all  English- 
men may  be  considered  equal.  It  is  on  this 
ground  that  racial  divisions  are  based.  The  clas- 
sification is  made  differently  by  different  ethnolo- 
gists. Seven  races  were  recognized  fifty  years  ago, 
then  the  number  was  reduced  to  five,  and  now 
there  is  agreement  upon  three.  Changed  grouping 
shows  the  difficulty  of  clear  demarcation.  Still, 
Mongolian,  Caucasian,  and  Ethiopian  races  are 
easily  distinguished.  The  Chinese  have  charac- 
teristics which  appear  in  every  Chinaman  and  do 
not  appear  in  any  African.  By  common,  and 
therefore  equal,  qualities  of  physical  and  intel- 
lectual constitution  individuals  compose  a  race. 

But  within  every  race,  over  and  above  the  com- 
mon racial  characteristics,  there  are  differentia- 
tions, the  difference  of  degree  in  unlikeness  from 
within  amounting  apparently  to  as  much  as  the 
difference  of  kind  in  unlikeness  from  without. 


16  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

The  horizontal  lines  which  divide  mankind  from 
animals  below  and  race  from  race  above  are  wide 
apart,  and  between  those  lines  are  substrata  in- 
numerable. Caucasian  is  a  racial  designation 
which  indicates  certain  common  features,  as  ver- 
tebrate is  a  designation  which  includes  animals 
having  a  certain  physical  structure.  But  the  dif- 
ference between  Matthew  Arnold  and  a  Neapoli- 
tan beggar,  both  Caucasians^  is  as  great  as  the 
difference  between  those  opposite  fourfooted  com- 
icalities of  nature,  the  kangaroo,  all  hind-legs,  and 
the  giraffe,  all  fore-legs,  both  vertebrates. 

Nations  sprung  from  the  same  racial  stock  are 
sufficiently  unlike  to  be  distinguished.  All  Ger- 
mans are  so  different  from  all  Frenchmen,  or,  to 
choose  examples  more  fnfearly  related  by  racial 
origin,  all  Germans  are  so  different  from  all  Eng- 
lishmen that,  in  comparison,  the  members  of  either 
nation  are  seen  to  have  that  in  common  which 
equalizes  them.  But  degrees  of  difference  within 
7  a  nation  are  greater  than  the  differences  of  one 
'  nation  from  another.  Some  men  of  the  same 
nation  are  more  unlike  or  unequal  than  some  men 
of  different  nations.  Gladstone  is  more  like  Bis- 
marck, unlike  as  they  are,  than  Gladstone  is  like 
William  Tomlinson,  who  can  earn  only  two  and 
sixpence  a  day.  The  resemblances  and  contrasts 
among  civilized  peoples  are  individual  rather  than 


EQUALITY  BY  BEOAD  COMPARISONS       17 

national.  Intelligence,  culture,  and  energy  follow 
stratifications  which  run  lengthwise  across  and 
through  the  nations.  Manners,  refinements,  and 
education  trace  the  lines  of  affinity  almost  regard- 
less of  nationality  and  speech.  As  modern  gentle- 
•-  men  dress  alike  the  world  over,  so  modern  gentle- 
men really  are  alike  the  world  over.  When  the 
uniform  and  the  regalia  which  mark  the  soldier 
and  the  courtier  are  thrown  aside,  dress,  manners, 
tastes,  interests,  draw  them  together.  The  com- 
munity of  scholars  is  intellectually  denationalized. 
A  school  of  artists  is  no  longer  French,  Italian, 
German,  or  American,  but  impressionist,  realistic, 
or  idealistic.  The  wage-earners  of  England  and 
Germany  have  a  comradeship  which  bids  fair  to 
have  more  power  than  partisan  and  political  affini- 
ties within  either  nation. 

It  is  only,  then,  in  large,  comprehensive  group- 
ings that  equality  exists.  Humanity,  as  a  whole, 
is  human.  There  is  a  common  endowment  of 
physical  structure  and  form,  of  reason  and  of 
moral  sentiments.  A  race,  as  a  whole,  has  com- 
mon characteristics,  and  at  first  sight  look  and 
seem  alike.  A  nation,  as  a  whole,  if  immigration 
has  not  been  extensive,  has  distinctive  and  iden- 
tical marks  upon  all  its  citizens.  On  a  superficial 
glance^only  the  likenesses  are  noticed.  At  a  meet- 
ing of  Norwegians  in  Faneuil  Hall  on  the  anniver- 


18  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

sary  of  the  discovery  of  America  by  Leif  Ericsson, 
a  spectator  said  that  there  seemed  to  be  one  great 
mass  of  yellow  hair  and  ruddy  faces.  A  congre- 
gation of  two  thousand  negroes  in  Savannah  pre- 
sented to  the  eye  scarcely  any  distinctions  but  sex 
and  age.  But  we  know  very  well  that  with  closer 
observation  and  with  acquaintance  clearly  marked 
differences  would  appear.  At  first  all  Chinamen 
look  alike,  but  on  acquaintance  prove  to  be  dif- 
ferent. Doubtless  Americans  at  first  seem  alike 
to  them,  but  they  soon  find,  indeed,  that  Ameri- 
cans are  unlike  one  another,  that  a  missionary  in 
Pekiu  is  distinguishable  from  a  San  Francisco 
politician. 

These  comparisons  have  at  least  elicited  the  fact 
that  the  races  themselves  are  radically  unlike. 
The  apostle  of  equality  must  be  zealous  indeed  if 
he  expects  to  fuse  all  racial  characteristics  in  the 
alembic  of  equality.  He  may  hope  for  fraternity, 
but  only  in  dreams  can  expect  homogeneity.  To 
be  of  the  Latin  stock,  —  a  modern  Italian,  French- 
man, or  Spaniard  —  to  be  of  the  Anglo-Saxon 
stock,  to  be  of  the  negro  race,  or  of  Chinese  blood, 
is  to  have  certain  characteristics  which  are  part  of 
one's  constitution,  and  which  one  cannot  change 
any  easier  than  the  leopard  can  change  his  spots, 
or  the  Chinaman  or  negro  his  coloring.  The  apos- 
tles of  equality,  therefore,  do  not  yet  stretch  their 


EQUALITY  BY  BROAD  COMPARISONS   19 

leveling  line  around  the  earth.  As  they  would 
bend  it  unconsciously,  but  certainly,  with  the  cur- 
vature of  the  earth,  so  they  would  deflect  it  in  obe- 
dience to  the  heterogeneity  and  inequality  of  the 
races  of  men  on  all  the  face  of  the  earth. 

It  is  within  the  nations  of  Christendom,  however, 
and  chiefly  in  each  of  the  great  nations  by  itself, 
that   the   demand   for    equality    is  urged.      It  is 
assumed  that,  on  the  basis  of  civil  and  political] 
equality  already  gained,  leveling  can  and  should  ' 
proceed  still  farther  on  the  yonder  lines  of  econo-   ) 
mic,  intellectual,  and  social  rights,  until  remaining  / 
inequalities  are  either  vastly  reduced  or  become  so 
microscopic  as   practically    to   disappear.      Those 
who  regard  this  as  an  easy  task  assume  that  the 
members  of  a  nation  are  so  essentially  alike  that 
no  more  is  needed  than  certain  changes  of  outward 
circumstance.     Those  who  regard  equalizing  as  a  / 
difficult   task   recognize    some  of   the   differences  I 
which  have  been  mentioned  —  differences  which    ^ 
cleave  deeper  than  outward  circumstance.    My  own/ 
opinion  is  that  distinctions  so   radical  reside   ir 
the  "constitution  of   men,  that  a  line  is  therefore 
reached  beyond  which   equalizing  is   an   impossi- 
bility, and  that  progress  consists  in  the  realization    — « 
rather  than  the  attempted  obliteration  of  human 
unlikenesses.     Consequently,  inquiry  must  be  di- 
rected next  to  the  original  and  various  types  which 


20  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

are  found  in  those  who  are  grouped  together  in  the 
modern  nations.  The  next  section  is  occupied 
with  consideration  of  types  produced  by  social 
selection  and  by  heredity,  and  will  be  followed  by 
criticism  of  certain  social  theories  which  are  popu- 
lar, and  by  definite  indication  of  the  actual  condi- 
tions of  progress. 


IV 

TYPES   AND   SOCIAL   SELECTION 

AFTER  all  equalizations  brought  about  by  re- 
ligion, by  law,  and  by. the  franchise  have  been 
made,  the  distinct  natural  differences  of  men  re- 
main. When  artificial  conventions  and  circum- 
stances have  been  abolished,  the  persistent, 
stubborn  facts  of  inequality  survive.  Men  are 
variously  endowed.  The  differences  are  not  in  a 
few  strata  within  which  all  persons  are  arranged, 
into  three  or  five  kinds  of  men,  into  classes  of 
wage-earners,  employers,  statesmen,  scholars,  ar- 
tists. Natural  inequalities  are  in  every  stratum,  / 
in  every  class,  in  every  pursuit.  Persons  in  the 
same  class,  employment,  circumstance  are  unlike. 
There  are,  as  we  say,  scholars  and  scholars,  em- 
ployers and  employers,  workingmen  and  working- 
men.  These  variations  are  not  traceable  to  con- 
ditions in  the  past  which  might  have  been  and 
should  have  been  different,  such  as  the  health, 
occupation,  and  education  of  ancestors.  Those 
conditions  doubtless  modify  but  do  not  create  dis- 
tinct types.  Persons  who  have  precisely  the  same 


22  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

antecedents  and  circumstances  are  unlike.  If  we 
trace  back  the  conditions  of  two  individuals  and  of 
their  ancestors,  putting  in  for  one  individual  what 
the  other  had,  or  taking  out  from  one  what  the 
other  had  not,  we  may  believe  that  they  would 
now  be  more  nearly  alike.  Yet  the  fact  remains 
that  two  brothers  are  as  different  in  capacity, 
tastes,  and  talents  as  two  men  of  different  family 

!and  descent.  The  antecedents  of  brothers  back 
through  the  generations  are  almost  identical.  The 
health  of  parents  at  the  two  periods  of  produc- 
tion may  have  varied,  the  season  of  the  year 
may  have  changed  so  that  the  brothers  were  not 
born  under  the  same  star,  the  education  of  the 
children  may  have  been  slightly  different,  but  no 
one  supposes  that  the  variety  of  types  is  accounted 
for  by  those  infinitesimal  causes.  The  native  in- 
equalities of  men  are  not  explained  by  conditions 
upon  which  human  control  can  exert  a  direct  in- 
fluence. After  study  of  inheritance  and  develop- 
ment, after  microscopic  investigation  of  germ-cells 
in  the  laboratory  of  reproduction,  almost  nothing 
is  known  concerning  the  causes  which  differentiate 
persons.  Professor  E.  B.  Wilson,  who  is  a  first- 
rate  authority  on  cytology,  after  tracing  all  the 
transformations  though  which  cells  pass  on  the 
way  from  inception  to  new  individuals  in  the  plant, 
animal,  and  human  creation,  says  that  we  cannot 


TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION  23 

close  our  eyes  to  the  fact  "  that  we  are  utterly  ig- 
norant of  the  manner  in  which  the  idioplasm  of  the 
germ-cell  can  so  respond  to  the  play  of  physical 
forces  upon  it  as  to  call  forth  an  adaptive  varia- 
tion." l  There  seems  to  be  no  possibility  of  knowing 
the  causes  which  make  men  unequal  in  important 
respects,  so  that  we  could  modify  them  and  produce 
five  or  ten  generations  hence  a  race  of  equal, 
identical  human  beings.  If  there  was  a  first  man 
he  was  alike.  But  we  see  no  absurdity  in  the 
tradition  that  his  first  two  children  were  unlike. 
If  the  race  could  be  put  back  into  the  person  of  its 
first  progenitor,  with  all  the  knowledge  of  his 
wisest  descendant  thrown  in,  there  is  no  reason  to 
believe  that  his  children  would  be  echoes  of  each 
other.  Much  less  is  it  to  be  supposed  that,  after 
the  mixed  combinings  of  hundreds  of  centuries, 
men  can  now  or  ever  be  made  alike,  just  because 
all  of  them  sprang  from  a  common  source.  As 
well  expect  in  the  course  of  a  century,  through  pro- 
cesses of  interbreeding,  to  change  a  mouse  into  an 
ox  because  both  are  mammalian  vertebrata,  and 
are  variations  from  one  preexisting  species. 

The  differentiation  of  individuals  goes  back  to 

germ-cells  which  must  be  unlike  since  the  results 

are  unlike.     Although  analysis  can  go  no  farther 

back  at  present,  even  with  the  aid  of  vision  magni- 

1  The  Cell  in  Development  and  Inheritance,  p.  330. 


24  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

fied  a  thousandfold,  yet  results  so  different  are  capa- 
ble of  association  with  corresponding  conditions  in 
ancestry.  It  can  thus  be  seen  that  certain  causes 
produce  certain  effects,  although  we  do  not  know 
how.  These  causes  in  heredity  and  also  in  circum- 
stance after  birth  are  commonly  recognized  as 
evolution  through  selection.  At  the  risk  of  tedious- 
ness,  I  venture  to  point  out  some  of  the  causes  which 
are  believed  to  produce  human  variations,  in  order 
to  show  that  they  are  largely  beyond  the  control 
of  individuals  or  the  enactment  of  laws. 

It  is  now  the  opinion  of  anthropologists  that  the 
development  of  the  human  race  depends  only  in  a 
secondary  degree  on  the  struggle  for  existence  and 
the  survival  of  those  who  are  fittest  by  mere 
strength.  Two  superior  stages  have  been  marked, 
stage  is  the  struggle  of  social  groups  with  one 
another.  As  between  tribes,  peoples,  or  nations, 
warfare  has  been  a  struggle  for  the  existence  of 
each  group.  But  within  the  group  coherence  and 
mutual  helpfulness  unite  all  the  members  and  give 
strength  to  supplant  other  groups  occupying  the 
same  territory.  To  some  extent  this  is  true  also 
of  animals.  While  some  beasts  carry  on  an  indi- 
vidual solitary  struggle,  or  at  most  have  a  single 
mate,  and  even  prey  upon  the  weaker  of  their  own 
kind,  nearly  all  animals  are  gregarious  and  find  in 
union  their  strength  for  struggle  with  other  groups. 


TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION  25 

There  may  be  no  conflict  at  all  with  other  animal 
societies.  Sustenance  is  gained  and  reproduction 
proceeds  without  molestation.  Much  has  been 
made  of  this  animal  altruism  as  a  simulation,  at 
least,  of  human  altruism. 

But  there  is  another  stage  of  human  evolution 
along  lines  of  progress  or  of  retrogression,  a  stage 
higher  than  the  struggle  of  individuals  for  exist- 
ence, higher  than  the  struggle  of  groups  with  one 
another,  and  higher  than  the  mutual  dependence  of 
gregariousness.  This  stage  or  method  is  charac-  s 
terized  as  social  selection.  It  is  a  process  work- 
ing within  each  group  and  in  the  intermixture  of 
groups.  It  is  not  a  process  of  conflict  but  of  com- 
bination by  means  chiefly  of  reproduction  and 
heredity.  A  French  professor,  Monsieur  de  La- 
pouge,1  specifies  various  kinds  of  social  selection, 
—  sexual,  military,  political,  legal,  economic,  moral, 
and  religious.  For  example,  a  Norwegian  marries 
a  German.  The  marriage  is  not  for  self-defense 
in  the  struggle  for  existence.  It  is  determined  by 
many  circumstances  which  have  brought  the  two 
persons  together,  and  by  personal  predilections 
which  are  as  little  understood  as  they  are  com- 
monly observed.  The  Norwegian  might  have  mar- 
ried another  Norwegian,  the  German  might  have 
chosen  another  German.  But  they  marry,  and 

1  Les  Selections  Societies.     G.  Vacher  de  Lapouge. 


26  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

their  children  are  a  result  of  that  voluntary  union 
which  fuses  the  blood  of  two  nationalities.  Roy- 
alty is  limited  to  royalty  in  marriage.  For  the 
rest  of  the  world,  although  custom  amounts  almost 
to  law  in  requiring  marriage  between  persons  of 
the  same  social  station,  there  is,  notwithstanding,  a 
wide  degree  of  freedom  which  is  continually  ex- 
tending. Rank  marries  wealth.  The  English  or 
Italian  nobleman  marries  the  American  heiress. 
It  was  not  law  which  prevented  the  judge  from 
marrying  Maud  Muller.  Opposite  temperaments 
are  united.  The  blue-eyed  man  is  wedded  to  the 
black-haired  woman.  Marriage  unites  different 
nationalities,  classes,  and  temperaments.  This  is 
an  instance  of  social  selection  which  supersedes 
the  struggle  for  existence,  both  the  personal  and 
the  gregarious  struggle.  Animals  mate  closely 
with  those  of  their  own  kind.  Crosses  are  infre- 
quent even  when  man  intervenes  to  produce  them, 
and  the  result  is  sterility.  Human  beings  mate 
variously,  and  some  degree  of  contrast  seems  to 
be  favorable  to  fertility.  Very  early  in  the  his- 
tory of  mankind,  wives  were  taken  from  other 
tribes,  first  by  capture  as  trophies  of  the  fierce 
wars  of  struggle,  then  by  purchase,  and  finally 
with  only  the  fiction  of  capture  or  purchase,  sur- 
viving in  some  of  the  ceremonies  of  marriage 
among  modern  nations. 


TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION  27 

Social  selection  could  be  followed  out  in  many 
directions,  nearly  all  of  which  affect  marriage  and 
reproduction.  Military  selection  is  the  mighty 
agency  of  war.  The  army  draws  off  the  strongest, 
destroys  many  of  them,  leaves  the  weak  stay-at- 
homes  to  intermarry  and  produce  children  like 
themselves,  and  leads  to  the  late  marriage  of  the 
survivors  of  war,  who  have  fewer  children  than 
those  who  marry  young.  War  also  reduces  the  v 
number  of  workers,  so  that  economic  productive- 
ness is  lessened,  and  poverty,  with  its  accompany-  ^ 
ing  weakness  and  disease,  is  increased. 

Keligion  has  separated  people  of  the  same  na- 
tion, and  has  limited  marriage  accordingly.  The 
celibacy  of  the  Romish  priesthood  withdrew  supe- 
rior men  from  marriage  for  several  centuries.  Re- 
ligious persecution  has  killed  off  many  of  the  most 
virile  and  intelligent  citizens.  The  charity  of  an- 
cient and  mediaeval  times  dumped  the  inefficient 
and  diseased  among  the  diligent  and  healthy,  and 
perpetuated  the  existence  and  reproduction  of  the 
scum  of  society.  These  forms  of  religious  selec- 
tion have  had  an  unfavorable  effect.  Other  forms 
which  have  promoted  intelligence,  independence, 
and  energy  of  character  have  had  a  favorable 
effect  on  whole  nations. 

Political  selection  has  been  detrimental,  when  it 
has  put  power  in  the  hands  of  inferior  men,  and 


28  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

thus  has  imposed  injurious  laws  and  enormous  ex- 
actions which  impoverish  millions  and  reduce  their 
vitality. 

The  increase  of  the  population  of  cities,  called 
urban  selection,  draws  off  the  best  as  well  as  the 
worst  elements  of  the  rural  districts ;  mingles  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  men;  subjects  the  pro- 
sperous to  influences  of  luxury,  of  high  pressure, 
and  of  social  ambitions  which  discourage  the  in- 
crease of  children ;  subjects  the  poor  to  overcrowd- 
ing, to  unsanitary  conditions  and  to  resultant  vice  ; 
and  tends  strongly  to  degeneration  of  stock.  At 
the  same  time  the  city  develops  intellectual  activity, 
promotes  social  intercourse,  and  stimulates  benevo- 
lence. 

Economic  selection  creates  healthy  and  un- 
healthy pursuits,  determines  the  amount  and  qual- 
ity of  sustenance,  and  on  a  larger  scale  mingles 
populations  by  migrations  due  to  colonization  and 
commerce. 

The  results  of  these  agencies  are  marshaled  by 
Lapouge  and  others  in  voluminous  statistics  which 
show  the  increase  of  brachy  -  cephalic  (short- 
headed)  people,  who  are  inferior,  and  the  decrease 
of  dolicho-cephalic  (long-headed)  people,  who  are 
superior.  The  vigor  of  ancient  Greece  and  Rome 
and  the  expansion  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  peoples  are 
attributed  to  the  large  proportion  of  dolicho- 


TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION  29 

cephalic,  the  decadence  of  the  modern  nations  of 
Southern  Europe  to  the  large  proportion  of  brachy- 
cephalic  persons.  It  is  not  necessary  to  exhibit 
these  statistics  in  detail,  nor  to  accept  all  the  con- 
clusions which  have  been  drawn  from  them.  But 
it  is  unquestionable  that  these  various  kinds  of 
social  selection,  which  are  largely  beyond  the  con- 
trol of  individuals,  create  and  modify  types,  and 
that  agencies  so  various  signify  an  endless  variety 
of  types.  As  evidently,  we  cannot  but  be  incred- 
ulous concerning  superficial  methods  of  change 
which  are  expected  to  obliterate  types  in  a  com- 
mon equality.  These  subtle  yet  powerful  agencies 
can  be  recognized  in  part  after  they  have  done 
their  work,  but  cannot  be  deflected  nor  arrested  to 
any  great  degree  by  the  persons  who  are  them- 
selves the  necessary  consequences  of  these  irresist- 
ible forces.  Beside  racial  and  national  influences 
the  education  of  this  or  that  individual,  an  educa- 
tion directed  by  those  who  are  products  of  the 
same  causes,  is  thought  by  Lapouge  to  have  only 
an  infinitesimal  effect.  He  takes,  I  think,  too 
small  account  of  education.  The  lack  of  such  in- 
tellectual attainment  and  discipline  as  are  possible 
to  each  individual  is  almost  fatal.  Education 
gives  the  increment  which  makes  the  difference 
between  success  and  failure  in  the  common  envi- 
ronment. But  he  does  show  that  other  and  more 


30  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

potent  causes  determine  the  type,  and  that  educa- 
tion can,  at  the  best,  only  improve  the  existing 
type  to  a  limited  degree.  The  same  conclusion 
is  reached  respecting  such  economic  improvement 
as  can  be  accomplished  by  a  different  division  of 
wealth  and  by  better  methods  of  production  and 
distribution,  for  they  touch  intellect  and  native 
energy  only  on  the  surface.  There  are  the  types 
to  start  with.  The  types  have  been  produced  by 
causes  which  have  been  working  through  centuries 
past,  and  are  working  still  in  the  obscure  region  of 
sexual  selection  and  heredity  and  in  those  com- 
minglings  of  population  which  are  not  controlled 
by  the  laws  of  States  nor  by  the  will  of  individu- 
als. I  shall  show  later  that  there  is  room  for  in- 
dividual intelligence  and  action  in  the  interests 
l(  of  progress,  and,  indeed,  that  the  hope  of  progress 
j  lies  in  the  leadership  of  superior  persons,  but,  at 
present,  I  am  endeavoring  to  show  how  deeply 
,  grounded  the  variety  of  human  nature  is. 

The  profound  teaching  of  the  parable  of  the 
talents  declares  that  for  every  person  the  power 
of  increase  may  double  original  possession.  Two 
talents  may  become  four;  five  may  become  ten. 
But  with  equal  truth  it  teaches  that  there  is  ori- 
[  ^gj^al  yjarietyijQf  endowment.  The  two  talents  may, 
indeed,  by  use  become  four,  so  that  the  increment 


\ 


is  equal  to  the  endowment,  but  to  have  ten  there 


TYPES  AND  SOCIAL  SELECTION  31 

must  be  five  to  begin  with  ;  and  the  man  with  two, 
after  increment  is  made,  has  not  the  five  with 
which  his  neighbor  was  originally  endowed.  Both 
were  citizens  with  equal  rights  of  citizenship,  and 
both,  in  the  application,  were  children  of  God, 
having  the  equality  of  infinite  worth  ;  but  in  per- 
sonal endowments  they  were  as  five  to  two.  It 
seems  unlikely  that  any  mechanical,  economic,  or 
even  educational  arrangements  directed  upon  per- 
sons who  are  products  of  obscure,  diversified,  and 
potent  causes  will  go  far  towards  overcoming  con- 
stitutional differences.  Certain  evils  and  injus- 
tices which  are  due  to  such  ^arrangements  may  be 
removed  ;  but  if  intelligence,  energy,  character^ 
type  are  to  be  modified,  it  can  be  only  by 


modification  of  the  causes  which  produce  themj 
Power  to  affect  those  causes  is  so  limited,  that  the 
types  may  be  regarded  as  persistent,  and  even  as 
the  fulfillment  of  the  Divine  intention  for  man- 
kind. 

NOTE.  —  It  is  interesting  to  notice  that  a  more  profound 
and  discriminating  view  of  human  development  has  taken 
the  place  of  views  which  were  considered  very  scientific  one 
generation  ago.  Draper,  in  his  Intellectual  Development  of 
Europe,  attributed  racial  and  national  characteristics  to 
climate,  and  classified  peoples  on  isothermal  lines.  It  is  now 
held  that  climate  and  rdgime  are  secondary  influences,  com- 
pared with  the  various  forms  of  social  selection. 


ECONOMIC   EQUALITY  A   CHIMERA 


ENOUGH  has  already  been  indicated  concerning 
the  inexorable  facts  of  diversity  to  warrant  crit- 
icism of  certain  theories  of  equality  which  have 
some  currency.  After  the  impracticability  of  those 
theories  has  become  evident,  I  shall  proceed  from 
|  negation  of  equality  to  the  positive  advantage  of 
A  inequality  as  a  condition  of  progress.  Since  criti- 
cism should  be  fair  and  discriminating,  this  sec- 
tion and  the  three  sections  following  are  occupied 
with  an  examination  of  those  theories  of  equality 
upon  which  urgent  demands  are  based.  The  first 
theory  is  so  crude  and  so  incapable  of  adjustment 
to  facts  that  it  would  be  undeserving  of  notice 
were  it  not  so  persistently  advocated.  The  cham- 
pions of  another  sort  of  equality  are  as  ready  as 
the  most  extreme  individualists  to  condemn  this 
first  theory.  Yet  it  is  not  without  earnest  sup- 
porters, and  is  commonly,  but  erroneously,  sup- 
posed to  be  the  theory  of  all  social  reformers.  For 
these  reasons,  therefore,  it  must  receive  such  con- 
sideration as  it  deserves.  It  is  the  theory  of  eco- 


ECONOMIC  EQUALITY  A  CHIMERA          33 

nomic  equality.  I  have  no  hesitation  in  awaken- 
ing prejudice  against  it  by  the  suggestion  of  the 
heading  that  economic  equality  is  a  chimera. 

A  recent  publication  in  the  shape  of  a  story 
which  pictures  realistically  the  conditions  of  life 
in  the  coming  heaven  on  earth  is  an  exponent  of 
this  theory.  The  book  is  entitled  "  Equality,"  and 
is  bound  in  covers  stamped  with  little  rectangular 
blocks  which  are  exactly  alike,  thus  assuming  and 
plainly  declaring  that  some  kind  of  equality  be- 
yond that  which  now  exists  is  to  convert  this 
present  Purgatorio  (or  rather  Inferno)  into  Para- 
diso.  I  do  not  propose  to  follow  the  author  into 
all  the  details  of  his  scheme  nor  to  point  out  his 
constant  exaggeration  of  the  evils  from  which  men 
now  suffer.  I  am  well  aware,  also,  that  scientific 
socialists  do  not  agree  with  many  of  his  repre- 
sentations, and  that  they  have  taken  pains  to  de- 
clare that  Bellamyism  is  not  socialism.  But  the 
two  stories  of  Mr.  Bellamy  ("  Equality  "  is  simply 
a  continuation  of  "  Looking  Backward  ")  lay  down 
correctly  the  principle  of  scientific  socialism.  That 
principle  is  collective  ownership  and  production 
of  wealth.  Socialists  differ  from  Mr.  Bellamy  only 
about  the  sharing  of  income.  He  would  have 
equal,  they  would  have  equitable  sharing.  Under 
the  literal  equalizing  imagined  in  the  story,  all 
men  and  women  are  to  have  the  same  income,  in 


34  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

the  shape  of  an  annual  credit.  All  children  pre- 
sumably, though  that  is  not  mentioned,  are  to  have 
equal  allowances  in  their  own  or  their  parents' 
hands.  No  one  can  go  beyond  his  credit  in  the 
government  bank.  If  any  one  does  not  use  all 
his  income,  no  credit  is  carried  forward,  but  he 
starts  every  year  anew  with  the  same  credit  which 
all  others  have.  This  annual  credit  is  placed  at  a 
fabulous  figure.  Every  individual  is  to  have  four 
thousand  dollars  a  year,  which,  in  view  of  public 
provision  for  many  wants  such  as  "  water,  light, 
music,  news,  the  theatre  and  opera,  all  sorts  of 
postal  and  electrical  communications,  transporta- 
tion, and  other  things  too  numerous  to  detail,"  is 
equivalent  to  six  or  seven  thousand  dollars  a  year. 
The  author  does  not  condescend  to  a  calculation 
of  the  total  national  income  at  such  an  individual 
rate.  If  the  population  of  the  United  States  in 
the  year  2000  A.  D.  (the  date  chosen)  is  one  hun- 
dred millions,  certainly  a  moderate  increase,  the 
total  product  of  a  year  would  be  four  hundred 
billions  of  dollars,  a  very  pretty  sum  to  divide 
around  every  twelvemonth,  with  little  use  for  it 
except  to  pay  for  board  and  clothes.  However, 
mechanisms  are  so  marvelously  improved  (the 
tides,  as  Emerson  foresaw,  doing  man's  chore  for 
him)  that  production  is  increased  a  hundredfold 
in  manufacture  and  fifteenfold  in  agriculture,  so 


ECONOMIC  EQUALITY  A  CHIMERA          35 

that  there  is  an  immense  amount  to  divide.  It  is 
immaterial,  however,  what  figures  and  amounts  are 
chosen.  The  point  is  that  every  one  is  entirely 
free  from  concern  about  subsistence,  dress,  hous- 
ing, and  all  other  creature  comforts,  that  by  work- 
ing half  a  day  till  the  age  of  forty-five  years,  this 
ample  provision  is  made,  and  that  thus  time  and 
energy  are  free  for  culture  and  enjoyment.  Work 
is  reduced  to  a  minimum,  and  all  are  living  in 
affluence.  None  of  the  sons  of  Adam  eat  their 
bread  in  the  sweat  of  their  faces. 

It  is  expected  that  this  economic  equalizing  will 
go  far  towards  intellectual  and  social  equalizing* 
The  picture  accordingly  represents  a  general  level- 
ing up  to  a  table-land  of  uniformity  above  which 
the  mountain  peaks  show  only  as  little  hills.  To 
be  sure,  some  room  is  left  for  personal  variations, 
in  style  of  dress  and  choice  of  studies  and  pursuits. 
The  objection  that  independence  and  originality 
are  sacrificed  is  noticed  but  not  answered.  The 
sexes  are  equalized,  men  and  women  dressing  alike 
and  engaging  in  all  occupations  indiscriminately. 
All  the  children  are  precocious,  boys  and  girls 
thirteen  years  of  age  discoursing  like  sages  about 
the  superseded  political  economy  of  the  nineteenth 
century.  In  the  gymnasium  scores  of  young  men 
and  women  dashed  by  in  a  foot-race.  "  The  thing 
that  astonished  me  was  the  evenness  of  the  finish. 


36  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

...  In  a  race  of  similarly  unselected  competitors 
in  my  day,  they  would  have  been  strung  along 
the  track  from  the  finish  to  the  half."  All  differ- 
ences of  character,  ability,  and  culture,  are  cor- 
respondingly slight. 

The  mere  statement  of  this  theory  of  mechanical 
equality  is  its  sufficient  refutation.  Precisely  what 
the  condition  of  society  would  be  if  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  had  a  liberal  fortune  is  not 
easily  guessed.  It  would  be  quite  reasonable  to 
expect  almost  universal  laziness,  the  usual  result  of 
an  easy  life,  or  a  good  degree  of  physical  compul- 
sion directed  upon  the  lazy.  In  fact,  the  author 
is  obliged  to  introduce,  with  the  economic  revolu- 
tion, a  great  religious  revival  sweeping  over  the 
nation  and  the  world,  in  order  to  convert  the  self- 
ish rich  and  the  lazy  poor  into  industrious,  ambi- 
tious, and  altruistic  citizens. 

If  there  should  be  economic  equality  on  any 
probable  or  possible  basis,  it  is  self-evident  that  the 
average  amount  of  possession  would  be  but  slightly 
changed.  Should  existing  wealth  be  divided  around 
equajly,  the  few  in  poverty  would  be  better  off, 
the  few  with  enormous  fortunes  and  large  incomes 
would  have  less,  but  the  vast  majority  between 
those  extremes  would  have  about  what  they  have 
now.  Five  hundred  dollars  each  would  be  a  gen- 
erous estimate  of  annual  income.  The  income  of  a 


ECONOMIC  EQUALITY 

Rothschild  would  give  a  franc  to  each  Frenchman 
—  an  inappreciable  increment.  To  secure  the  ne- 
cessary product,  as  much  toil  by  as  many  toilers 
would  be  necessary  as  at  present,  with  no  in- 
centive but  good  will.  Some  compulsion  would 
be  necessary  to  insure  sufficient  labor.  It  would 
be  strange  if  shrewd  men  failed  to  find  a  way  of 
getting  more  than  an  aliquot  share  of  the  total 
income. 

But  all  these  theories  are  the  stuff  that  dreams 
are  made  of.  So  moderate  a  subsistence  as  would  • 
be  possible  under  equal  sharing  is  a  lame  substi- 
tute for  incentives  to  self-support  from  the  pos- 
sibility of  bettering  one's  condition.  Above  all, 
since  economic  conditions  alone  have  not  created 
existing  differences,  but  are  only  one  expression  of 
differences,  there  is  no  reason  to  expect  that  im- 
proved economics,  without  more  radical  changes  in 
human  nature,  will  obliterate  those  differences. 
Causes  which  lie  deeper  than  material  welfare  ' 
and  material  destitution  have  made  men  unequal. 
Those  causes  are,  to  a  large  degree,  beyond  human 
control,  and,  so  far  as  can  be  seen,  will  never  cease 
to  operate. 

I  am  not  contending  that  the  present  system  of 
economic  production  and  distribution  is  capable  of 
no  improvement.  I  do  not  deny  that  untoward 
circumstances  restrain  some  men  unjustly,  that 


38  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

overwork  and  underpay  withhold  some  from  the 
health,  the  time,  and  the  advantages,  which  would 
be  conducive  to  welfare  and  improvement.  It  is 
possible,  nay,  more,  it  is  practicable,  so  to  adjust 
the  kind,  amount,  and  rewards  of  labor  that  large 
numbers  of  men  would  be  heathier,  happier,  wiser, 
and  better  than  they  are.  The  fecundity  of  the 
earth  and  the  facilities  of  production  are  ample  to 
supply  the  needs  of  civilized  peoples  in  such  measure 
that  all  might  have  sufficient  food,  comfortable  rai- 
ment and  shelter,  and  a  considerable  margin  of 
time  for  enjoyment  and  improvement.  To  hope 
for  this  is  quite  within  the  bounds  of  reasonable 
expectation,  if  only  in  view  of  the  betterment  of 
conditions  which  has  made  the  luxuries  of  the  last 
century  the  necessary  and  accustomed  possession  of 
the  great  majority  to-day.  What  was  denied  when 
political  economy  was  called  the  dismal  science  be- 
cause its  laws  were  supposed  to  be  as  unchangeable 
as  the  laws  of  nature  is  now  generally  recognized, 
namely,  that  economics  is  an  ethical  science,  having 
to  do  with  health,  comfort,  happiness,  and  morals. 
Certain  evils  of  fifty  years  ago  have  been  elimi- 
nated, and  further  improvements  may  be  expected.^ 
These  changes,  however,  have  not  been  in  the  line  ; 
of  mechanical  equalizing,  but  have  been  wrought  I 
by  justice,  humaneness,  and  growing  intelligence. 
By  striking  at  acknowledged  injustices,  in  part 


ECONOMIC  EQUALITY  A  CHIMERA          39 

through  the  power  of  democracy,  and  by  the  ap- 
plication of  ethical  principles  to  economic  produc- 
tion and  distribution,  there  will  come,  not  the  dead 
level  of  economic  equality,  but  a  larger  coopera- 
tion and  the  constant  betterment  of  all  classes. 
But  it  is  time  to  turn  from  speculations  concern- 
ing an  impossible  economic  equalizing  to  demands 
which  are  directed  to  another  form  of  equality 
under  the  existing  system  as  it  may  be  modified. 


VI 

EQUALITY   OP   OPPOKTUNITY:    EDUCATION 

ECONOMIC  equality  through  collective  produc- 
tion is  scouted  by  a  school  of  social  reformers  who 
make  equality  of  another  kind  an  important  part  of 
their  programme.  They  retain  the  charmed  word, 
but  give  it  another  definition.  (Not  equal  posses- 
sion of  wealth,  but  equality  of  opportunity  is  the 
?hief  condition  of  social  welfare  and  progress.  ' 
W'hile  they  regard  private  property  and  the  incen- 
,  tives  to  obtain  it  as  indispensable,  they  maintain 
that  prerogatives,  monopolies,  privileges,  inherited 
possessions,  and  the  like,  exclude  many  from 
opportunities  which  should  be  unrestricted.  They 
believe  that  the  civil  and  political  power  of  demo- 
cracy should  be  employed  to  open  doors  that  are 
now  closed.  They  are  of  the  opinion  that  the 
next  task  of  democracy  is  the  equalizing  of  oppor- 
tunity, which  men  may  then  use  or  not  use  as  they 
see  fit. 

Evidently  this  is  another  elastic  phrase  which 
means  little  or  much,  according  to  the  explanation. 
When  it  is  defined  and  qualified  into  the  limits  of 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  EDUCATION    41 

the  practicable,  it  may  perhaps  be  convenient  and    / 
available  to  express  a  real  need,  although  the  qual-   I 
ifications  will  be  found  to  take  out  the  equality  — 
the  very  thing  contended  for  —  while,  if  there  is 
no   qualification,   it   is   contrary   to   the  facts   of 
human  nature  and  fatal  to  progress. 

Napoleon  said  that  he  would  open  a  career  to 
talents.  If  some  persons  of  talent  were  by  birth  I 
or  station  debarred  from  certain  pursuits,  and 
those  adventitious  disabilities  were  removed,  doors 
which  had  been  closed  would  have  been  opened. 
That  would  have  been  a  widening  but  scarcely  an 
equalizing  of  opportunity.  If  only  members  of 
the  nobility  could  at  that  time  be  professors  in 
the  Sorbonne  (I  am  imagining  a  case)  and  Napo- 
leon removed  that  restriction,  he  would  have  been 
keeping  his  word  by  opening  a  career  to  talent. 
But  the  Sorbonne  faculty  would  have  presented 
no  opportunity  to  an  ignoramus.  Teaching  in  the 
university  would  not  have  been  an  equal  opportu- 
nity to  all  Frenchmen.  Had  he  repealed  a  require- 
ment (I  am  still  imagining  a  case)  that  only 
Frenchmen  could  be  professors,  he  would  have 
opened  a  door  to  Englishmen  and  Italians,  but  not 
to  all  Englishmen  and  Italians.  The  opportunity 
would  not  have  been  universally  equal,  but  equal 
only  for  those  who  had  the  necessary  qualifications. 
That  is,  the  opportunity  would  be  equal,  other 


42  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

tilings  being  equal.  But  other  things  are  not  equal; 
and  never  can  be.  Napoleon  may  have  joined  in 
the  national  cry  of  liberty,  equality,  fraternity,  but 
he  placed  a  tremendous  restriction  on  the  middle 
term  of  that  high-sounding  phrase  when  he  pro- 
claimed the  more  modest  r81e  of  opening  a  career 
to  talents. 

Two  representative  examples  of  equal  opportu- 
nity are  sufficient  for  illustration:  provision  foif 
universal  education,  and  the  opening  of  all  purf 
suits.  Education  and  employments  cover  the 
greater  part  of  the  ground.  What  now  is  meant 
by  equality  of  opportunity  in  these  two  most  im- 
portant respects  ? 

Education  is  already  so  generally  provided  in 
America  and  other  countries,  that,  without  fore- 
casting imaginary  conditions,  there  is  no  difficulty 
in  seeing  how  much  equality  is  given  by  that  op- 
portunity. All  classes  of  persons  are  supposed  to 
need  education.  The  public  schools,  which  supply 
this  need,  are  open  to  all  persons  that  are  under  a 
certain  age.  The  same  amount  of  time  is  given  to 
all ;  the  same  courses  are  prescribed  for  all ;  the 
same  teachers  are  appointed  to  all.  The  oppor- 
tunity is  not  merely  open ;  it  is  forced  upon  all. 
Even  under  a  socialistic  programme  it  is  difficult 
to  imagine  any  arrangement  for  providing  the 
education  which  all  are  supposed  to  need  more 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  EDUCATION   43 

nearly  equal  than  the  existing  system  of  public 
schools.  Even  Mr.  Bellamy  finds  schools  in  the 
year  2000  A.  D.  modeled  after  those  of  the  nine- 
teenth century.  All  things  are  changed  except 
the  schools.  With  the  advantage,  then,  of  a  case 
in  hand,  nothing  need  be  left  to  conjecture.  Now, 
the  most  superficial  observation  shows  that  this 
actual  opportunity,  which  not  only  invites  but  con- 
strains youth  to  appropriate  it,  is  not  and  can- 
not be  an  equal  opportunity  for  all.  Behind  fifty 
desks  exactly  alike  fifty  boys  and  girls  are  seated 
to  recite  a  lesson  prescribed  to  all.  Could  oppor- 
tunity be  more  nearly  equal  for  half  a  hundred 
youth  ?  But  the  algebra  is  not  an  opportunity  for 
the  boy  who  has  no  turn  for  mathematics.  He 
may  throw  his  head  at  the  book  and  stand  dazed 
before  the  blackboard ;  but  the  science  is  not  for 
him  any  more  than  the  Presidency  of  the  United 
States  is  for  a  tramp  —  perhaps  not  so  much. 
Indeed,  the  more  nearly  equal  the  opportunity  out- 
wardly, the  more  unequal  it  is  really.-  When  the 
same  instruction  for  the  same  number  of  hours  a 
day  by  the  same  teachers  is  provided  for  fifty  boys 
and  girls,  the  majority  have  almost  no  opportunity 
at  all.  The  bright  scholars  are  held  back  by  the 
rate  possible  to  the  average,  the  dull  scholars  are 
unable  to  keep  up  with  the  average,  and  only  the 
middle  section  have  anything  like  a  fair  opportu- 


44  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGKESS 

nity.     Even  average  scholars  are  discouraged  be- 
cause the  brighter  pupils  accomplish  their  tasks  so 
^easily  and  never  take  their  books  home. 

Educators  have  not  solved  the  problem  of  edu- 
cation. Methods  are  frequently  changed,  new 
studies  are  introduced,  the  child  mind  is  analyzed, 
and  a  psychological  order  of  development  made 
directive.  Even  the  babies  in  the  pre-kindergarten 
period  must  all  play  with  round  objects  of  certain 
colors.  And  so  on,  from  forms  to  numbers,  words, 
letters,  facts,  principles.  New  methods  are  contin- 
ually disparaging  old  methods,  but  the  fact  remains 
that  as  yet  a  common  school  education  does  not 
educate.  Not  one  child  in  ten  after  three  years 
in  the  grammar  school  speaks  grammatically.  Not 
one  boy  in  five,  after  six.  years  of  arithmetic  and 
algebra,  can  work  out  an  actual  business  transac- 
tion correctly.  The  failure  lies,  not  in  method  nor 
in  studies  chiefly,  but  in  the  attempt  at  equaliza- 
tion. Methods  are  capable,  to  be  sure,  palpably 
capable  of  improvement.  Courses  of  study  may  be 
too  narrow  or  too  broad.  Manual  training  may 
well  be  added  to  intellectual  training.  The  tradi- 
tional curriculum  assumes  that  all  the  boys  are 
to  be  bookkeepers  and  all  the  girls  accountants. 
Slight  additions  of  botany  and  geology  assume 
that  the  pupils  are  to  be  scientists.  The  fact  that 
the  great  majority  of  the  boys  are  to  be  mechanics, 


EQUALITY  OF  'OPPORTUNITY :  EDUCATION    45 

farmers,  operatives,  and  day-laborers,  and  that 
the  great  majority  of  the  girls  are  to  be  wives  of 
workmen,  and  will  have  to  cook,  sweep,  make  beds, 
and  sew,  or  become  type-writers,  saleswomen,  dress- 
makers, and  milliners,  has  not  yet  distinctly  dawned 
on  the  mental  horizon  of  educators.  At  a  recent 
meeting  of  the  National  Educational  Association, 
the  committee  on  rural  schools  (which  more  than 
three  quarters  of  all  the  children  attend)  actually 
proposed  that  instruction  should  be  given  in  farm- 
ing and  gardening,  that  school  gardens  should  be 
"  planned  and  conducted,  not  merely  to  teach  the 
pure  science  of  botany,  but  also  the  simple  princi- 
ples of  the  applied  science  of  agriculture  and  gar- 
dening." The  proposition  is  evidently  novel  and 
startling.  Nobody  seems  to  have  thought  of  that 
before.  But,  even  if  education  had  some  sort  of 
correspondence  to  future  employments,  it  cannot 
educate  so  long  as  it  is  collective  rather  than  se- 
lective, that  is,  so  long  as  it  offers  the  uniformity 
of  equal  opportunity.  How  much  practical  know- 
ledge of  market  gardening  will  the  thirty  boys 
and  girls  of  the  West  district  gain  by  digging  to- 
gether in  the  school  garden  half  an  hour  a  day 
with  the  schoolmistress  ?  In  all  branches  of  study 
the  difficulty  is  the  equalizing.  There  should  be  x 
small  groups  and  instruction  adapted  to  the  vary- 
ing capacities  of  pupils.  The  prime  necessity  is  I 


46  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

^  inequality  of  opportunity  in  agreement  with  in- 
equality of  individuals.  xThe  higher  education  of 
negroes  in  the  South  is  more  wisely  conducted 
than  that  of  whites  in  the  North.  Industrial 
training  is  made  as  important  as  book-training. 
The  announcement  of  Atlanta  University  says: 
-  "  Combined  with  the  higher  education,  and  com- 
pulsory upon  all  students,  is  the  industrial  train- 
ing—  in  carpentry,  blacksmi  thing,  lathe -work  in 
wood  and  in  iron,  mechanical  and  architectural 
drawing,  and  printing,  for  young  men  ;  and  in  cook- 
ing, sewing,  dressmaking,  laundry  work,  nursing 
the  sick,  and  printing,  for  young  women.  Such 

i  education  is  individual.  Each  does  his  own  work 
by  himself  in  shop  and  hospital.  Eef  orm  schools 
devote  one  half  day  to  manual  training,  and  the 
boys  make  as  much  progress  at  their  books  as  boys 
in  other  schools  who  spend  both  sessions  in  study. 
In  some  of  the  cities  and  larger  towns,  manual 
training  has  been  provided  during  recent  years 
with  the  best  results.  The  training  is  selective 
rather  than  collective,  and  therefore  succeeds. 

Education  should  be  universal,  that  is,  should  be 
provided  for  all.  But  universal  is  not  the  same  as 
equal  opportunity.  The  uniformity  of  common 
schools  is  a  parable  which  might  be  applied  to  all 
equalizing  of  opportunities  for  large  numbers  of 
people. 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  EDUCATION    47 

On  the  higher  ranges  of  education,  the  inequal- 
ity of  equality  is  yet  more  marked.  Harvard  Uni- 
versity offers  equal  opportunities  to  all.  Students1 
are  received  from  all  States  of  the  Union  and  from1 
foreign  countries,  from  any  race,  any  class,  any 
family.  The  price  of  tuition  is  the  same  for  all. 
A  young  man  proposes  to  enter  the  Freshman 
class,  but  is  refused.  He  expostulates,  saying 
that  he  is  of  the  proper  age,  has  been  convicted  of 
no  crime,  and  has  the  one  hundred  and  fifty  dol- 
lars in  his  hand.  Here  is  the  fee  (fee  simple 
indeed).  But  you  did  not  have  the  right  kind  of 
grandfather.  There  is  a  deficiency  of  gray  matter. 
You  can  never  be  a  mathematician,  a  linguist,  or  a 
philosopher,  but  you  will  be  a  very  good  mechanic. 
If  any  who  choose  to  do  so  should  attack  the 
courses  and  be  let  loose  in  the  laboratories,  if  the 
professors  should  lecture  and  experiment  before 
the  mongrel  crew,  treating  all  alike,  not  one  in 
a  hundred  would  have  any  opportunity  at  all.  As 
it  is,  after  examination  and  selection,  the  chief 
difficulties  of  collegiate  education  are  created 
by  the  massing  of  students  in  large  numbers. 
Comparison  of  the  ideals  of  English  and  Ameri- 
can universities  is  occupied  with  their  power  to 
make  students  work  and  to  adapt  instruction 
to  individuals.  The  lecture  method,  the  tutorial 
method,  the  laboratory  and  seminar  method  are 


X 


48  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

estimated  from  the  point  of  view  of  adaptation  to 
numbers.1 

Small  colleges  are  thought  by  many  to  have  ad- 
vantage over  thronged  universities,  because  two  or 
three  scores  of  men  can  be  better  taught  than  two 
or  three  hundred  nten  together.  Until  recently 
the  division  of  large  classes  at  Yale  University  was 
made  alphabetically,  but  is  now  made  by  grades 
of  scholarship,  for  the  good  of  the  lower  grades 
quite  as  much  as  for  the  good  of  the  higher  grades. 
Thus  both  common  schools  and  colleges  fail  if 
they  attempt  to  give  equality  of  opportunity.  They 
make  no  external  discrimination,  and  should  make 
none.  Persons  are  equal  so  far  as  class,  means, 
and  family  are  concerned.  But  indiscriminate, 

uniform  instruction  is  no  instruction  at  all.     Thev 

$ 

prime  necessity  is  adaptation  to  the  unequal  abili- 
ties, the  various  capacities,  the  different  predilecr 
tions  of  students^  In  fact,  unequal  opportunities! 
for  unequal   persons  give  a  nearer   approach  to  i 
equality  than  equal  opportunities  for  unequal  per-  / 
^sons.  X)ffering  the  same   opportunity  to  an  ex- 
tended  number   brings   out   inequalities.      When 
Oxford  University  was  open  only  to  Churchmen, 
many  superior  men  were  excluded.     When  Non- 
conformists were  admitted  they  took  a  good  share  of 
the  prizes  and  fellowships,  defeating  those  Church- 

1  "  Jowett  and  the  University  Ideal,"  Professor  W.  J.  Ashley: 
The  Atlantic  Monthly,  July,  1897. 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  EDUCATION    49 

men  who  otherwise  would  have  succeeded.  The 
wider  competition  and  selection  emphasized  in- 
equality, as  equalizing  of  opportunity  always  does. 
Education  is  an  unfortunate  example  for  the 
advocates  of  equality  of  opportunity.  They  would 
be  more  consistent  if  they  demanded  unequal  op- 
portunity, since  that  would  make  the  most  rather 
than  the  least  of  those  who  are  inferior.  Let 
everybody  go  to  school,  by  all  means,  and  in  that 
respect  be  equal  to  every  other  body.  But  let  the 
opportunities  in  the  schools  be  as  unequal  as  the 
persons  and  as  their  future  vocations.  Professor 
Paulsen,  of  Berlin,  shows  that  the  educational  ideal 
has  been  tending  towards  individuality  so  that 
each  may  be  taught  according  to  his  natural  endow- 
ment, and  has  been  moving  away  from  uniformity 
by  introducing  natural  science,  history,  and  indus- 
trial training.  He  says  that  the  ideal  is  "vigor 
and  originality,  not  equality,  nor  that  uniformity 
which  disregards  the  demands  of  nature ;  for  this 
produces  weakness  and  false  culture.  Let  us  exA 
tend  to  every  individual  the  liberty  of  developing  \ 
his  talents  according  to  the  demands  of  his  nature,  / 
in  order  that  he  may  reach  the  summit  of  his  ca-/ 
pacity." l  In  this  sense  culture  may  and  should  be 
universal.  There  should  be  no  illiteracy.  There 
should  be  a  suitable  education  for  all. 

1  "  The  Evolution  of  the  Educational  Ideal,"  The  Forum,  August, 
1897. 


VII 

EQUALITY  OF   OPPORTUNITY:   PURSUITS 

THE  other  demand  is  for  equality  in  pursuits, 
occupations,  and  professions.  The  complaint  is 
heard  that  occupations  which  are  open  to  some  are 
closed  to  others,  and  it  is  maintained  that  all  occu- 
pations should  be  equally  open  to  all  persons.  It 
is  believed  that  equal  freedom  to  enter  any  and  all 
{pursuits  would  greatly  relieve  the  strain  of  hard- 
'ship  and  poverty  by  increase  of  wages,  salaries,  and 
'  incomes,  and  so  would  put  men  in  the  way  of  obtain- 
Jing  comfort,  enjoyment,  and  culture.  What,  now, 
is  the  nature,  and  what  the  reasonableness  of  this 
demand  ?  The  nature  of  the  demand  is  perceived 
by  noticing  the  causes  which  are  supposed  to  debar 
many  persons  from  certain  pursuits. 

Want  ofjcapital  is  one  cause.  Every  productive 
business  requires  capital.  A  man  without  capital 
or  without  credit  to  obtain  it  cannot  become  a 
woolen  manufacturer.  Another  cause  is  want  j)f 
influence.  The  sons  of  capitalists  and  manu- 
facturers are  provided  with  occupation  by  their 
fathers.  A  professional  man  induces  a  merchant 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     51 

who  is  his  client,  or  patient,  or  parishioner,  to  em- 
ploy his  son  on  a  salary  with  prospect  of  a  small 
interest  in  the  business.     Favoritism   thus  opens 
pursuits  to  some  and  thereby  closes  them  to  others. 
It  is   claimed  that  such   opportunities  should  be 
equally  open  to  all.     Another  cause  which  makes/ 
opportunities  unequal  is  the  combination  of  capital  . 
in  vast  amountshelcT  1by  "coTporaHons7  trusts,  and  ' 
syndicates  which  crowd  out  or  buy  out  small  manu- 
facturers.    Still  another  cause  is  lack  of  training.  / 
•*-—-^««*-.  ,..*....  .  •»•»•••••••»  %  - 

Men  without  education  cannot  be  physicians,  law- 
yers, preachers,  teachers,  editors,  architects,  musi- 
cians, and  artists.  The  only  pursuits  open  to  those 
who  have  no  capital,  no  influence,  or  no  education, 
are  the  wage-earning  pursuits  in  manufacture  and 
agriculture,  or,  at  the  best,  positions  as  foremen 
and  overseers  in  shops  or  mills,  and  ownership  of 
small  farms. 

The  opening  of  pursuits  which  require  capital  is 
possible  only  by  a  radical  change  in  the  economic 
system.  The  only  system  under  which  there  can 
be  equality  of  opportunity  is  collective  production, 
which  is  not  desired  by  the  advocates  of  equal  op- 
portunity. And  if  that  system  were  adopted,  the 
majority  would  be  laborers  under  direction.  Even 
the  economic  army  of  socialism  cannot  be  com- 
posed entirely  of  major-generals.  It  is  expected, 
indeed,  that  there  would  not  be  as  many  managers 


52  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

as  now.  There  would  be  only  a  different  method 
of  rewarding  the  rank  and  file,  who  would  have 
the  very  same  pursuits  they  are  now  engaged  in. 

Something  might  be  done  to  limit  the  amount  of 
capital  a  corporation  can  hold,  and  so  increase  the 
number  of  manufacturers.  Trusts  and  syndicates 
might  be  forbidden  by  law.  There  are  laws  on 
the  statute-books  to  prevent  the  restraint  of  trade, 
and  these  laws  might  be  rigidly  enforced.  But 
considerable  massing  of  capital  is  essential  to 
cheapness  of  production.  Small  factories  increase 

/  the  price  of  commodities ;  large  factories  and  de- 
partment stores  cheapen  prices.  Trusts  and  syndi- 
cates are  exposed  to  competition,  and  thus  far  only 
a  few  of  them  have  been  successful.  So  long  as 
private  enterprise  using  private  capital  is  per- 
mitted, so  long  the  number  who  are  engaged  in 
business  for  profit  must  be  relatively  small.  No- 
thing more  is  to  be  desired  than  that  the  savings 
of  industry  may  find  investment  in  profitable  busi- 
riess,  as  they  now  do  by  millions  of  dollars  depos- 
ited in  banks  and  invested  in  stocks,  and  that 
thrifty  men  may  be  able  to  set  up  in  business  for 
themselves,  as  they  are  constantly  doing.  Possi- 
bly such  use  of  savings  can  be  made  easier  by 
V  legislation,  and,  if^at  is  equality  of  opportunity, 

^everybody  is  in  favor  of  it. 

Profit-sharing,  if   it  should    become  generally 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     53 

practicable,  would  give  industrious  and  skillful 
workmen  a  share  of  the  gains  and  a  voice  in  the 
conduct  of  business,  but  would  not  give  opportu- 
nity to  all  to  become  managers. 

As  to  the  advantage  of  favored  sons,  a  good  deal 
could  be  said  for  permanence  and  continuity  of  man- 
agement thus  secured.  As  yet,  however,  instances 
of  such  continuity  for  three  or  four  generations 
are  rare.  There  are  not  sons  and  grandsons  enough 
in  some  families,  or,  indeed,  all  the  boys  are  girls, 
or  there  are  no  children  at  all,  or  the  sons  prefer 
intellectual  pursuits,  even  if  they  are  not  content 
to  live  in  elegant  leisure  on  allowance  and  inher- 
ited income,  or  inefficient  sons  are  crowded  out  by 
more  enterprising  men.  Since  charity  has  become 
the  fashion,  poor  boys  of  promise  find  positions 
more  easily  than  the  sons  of  professional  men. 
Proteges  are  more  interesting  than  social  equals. 

An  extension  of  municipal  ownership  and  man- 
agement is  advocated  as  one  way  of  enlarging 
opportunity,  by  opening  a  great  number  of  posi- 
tions. If  the  government  is  pure,  some  capable 
men  will  be  transferred  from  private  to  public  em- 
ployments, but  the  number  of  occupations  will  not 
be  increased,  nor  will  incapable  men  obtain  posi- 
tions. If  the  government  is  not  pure,  favoritism 
and  corruption  will  limit  opportunity,  and  will  be 
as  much  inveighed  against  as  capital  and  family 


54  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

interest  are  now.  The  evils  of  French  bureaucracy 
would  be  upon  us  in  full  force.  Municipal  provi- 
sion of  enjoyments  and  facilities,  such  as  parks, 
museums,  libraries,  and  baths,  is  not  for  the  pur- 
pose of  opening  pursuits,  but  of  promoting  the 
comfort  and  culture  of  all  citizens,  whatever  their 
pursuits.  As  to  public  ownership  and  control  which 
stop  short  of  collectivism,  there  is  a  necessary  and 
rather  narrow  limit  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  for 
they  are  dependent  on  taxation,  that  is,  on  a  por- 
tion of  the  earnings  and  incomes  of  individual 
industry.  Should  public  be  as  extensive  as  private 
ownership,  half  and  half,  it  is  obvious  that  the  half 
of  private  income  would  be  taken  by  the  tax-gath- 
erer, and  that  the  people  would  not  have  enough 
left  to  provide  the  necessaries  of  life.  They  would 
go  without  bread  in  order  to  have  a  pleasant  park 
to  sit  in.  Half  ownership  by  city,  State,  and 
nation  would  have  to  be  whole  ownership,  and  we 
are  landed  again  in  universal  collectivism.  But 
by  the  assumption,  collectivism  is  not  demanded, 
and  so  public  control  can  open  but  few  opportu- 
nities. 

If  the  existing  system  is  not  to  be  essentially 
changed,  if  the  community  is  not  to  go  over  to  col- 
lectivism, reliance  must  be  placed  on  training  and 
education  for  equality  of  opportunity.  Let  no 
man  be  debarred  from  as  complete  an  education  as 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     55 

he  can  acquire,  so  that  all  may  be  fitted  for  appro- 
priate pursuits.     This  conclusion  carries  us  back  to 
what  has  already  been  said  concerning  education. 
Statistics  show  that   only  a   small  percentage  of 
pupils  — about  five  per  centum  — pass  beyond  the 
grammar  schools.     A  reason  alleged  is  the  neces- 
sity of  going  to  work.     It  is  assumed  that,  if  the 
education  were  carried  further,  if  all  went  through 
the  high  school  and  the    scientific  or   academic 
schools,  they  would  not  be  condemned  to  the  posi- 
tion of  wage-earners,  or  at  least  not  so  many  of 
them.     It  is  true  that  some  children  are  taken  out  > 
of  school  by  their  parents  in  order  that  they  may  / 
work  and  help  support  the  family.     But  I  believe  ) 
that  very  few  bright  and  promising  pupils  are  thus 
arrested  in  the  course  of   education.      They  are 
incited  by  teachers  to  go  on,  and  their  parents 
desire  them  to  go  on.     The  fact  is  that  the  vast  \ 
majority  do  not  wish  to  study.     They  are  not  very  \ 
intelligent,  they  tire  of  school,  they  wish  to  be  earn-  ' 
ing  money  for  themselves.     Young  persons  leave  I 
school  because   they   can   engage   in   occupations  ' 
which  they  have  enough  fitness  to  pursue.     The 
assumption  in  question  furnishes,  then,  this  inter- 
esting conclusion :   pursuits  are  not  open  because 
young  men  and  women  are  not  sufficiently  educated ; 
young  men  and  women  leave  school  early  in  order 
to  engage  in  lucrative  pursuits.     The  high  schools 


56  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

are  depleted  by  the  inducements  of  waiting  occu- 
pations, but  persons  do  not  have  occupations  be- 
cause they  do  not  attend  the  high  school.     The 
real  reason  education  is  arrested  is  not  objective, 
but  subjective.     It  is  not  because   circumstances 
prevent  attendance,  nor  because  schools  are  want- 
ing, but    because   young  persons  prefer  work  to 
study.     Few  American  boys  that  thirst  for  know- 
ledge are  forced  out  of  school  into  the  mill.     My 
own  opinion  is  that  it  is  a  great  deal  better  for  the 
most  of  the  pupils  not  to  remain  in  school.    They 
are  cut  out  for  mechanics,  weavers,  farmers,  arti- 
sans.   To  acquire  skill  in  their  pursuits  they  should 
begin  early.     A  musician  said  that  he  could  never 
be  a  really  great  pianist  because  he  did  not  begin 
till  he  was  twenty  years  of  age.     The  hand  must 
be  developed  during  the  period  of  growth  if  one  is 
to  be  a  master.     This  is  equally  true  of  nearly  all 
occupations  which  require  physical  skill.     Also,  by 
beginning  manual  work  early  proper  provision  can 
/  be  made  for    marriage.      Above    all,  the   higher 
i  schools  do  not  fit  scholars,  but  actually  unfit  them, 
/  for  manual  pursuits,  by  giving  a   smattering   of 
/   knowledge  and  by  creating  distaste  for  the  humble 
I    tasks  to  which  the  majority  are  best  suited.     Some 
\  allowance  being  made  for  untoward  circumstances, 
*  —  an  allowance  which  must  be  made  until  at  some 
distant  day  society  comes  to  perfection,  —  the  real 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     57 

reason  why  the  vast  majority  work  with  their  hands 
the  thing  that  is  good,  and  the  small  minority 
work  with  their  brains  the  thing  that  is  good,  the 
real  reason  why  the  higher  pursuits  are  not  open  to 
all,  is  the  persons  themselves.  The  personal  equa- 
tion chiefly  determines  occupation  and  remunera- 
tion. A  few  are  capable  of  directing  others ;  thd 
many  need  direction. 

Too  much  opportunity  is  lack  of  opportunity. 
An  easy  path  invites  sauntering.  A  steep  path 
compels  climbing.  On  the  other  hand,  lack  of 
opportunity  may  become  opportunity.  Strong  pur- 
pose creates  opportunity.  The  very  making  of 
opportunity  out  of  nothing  is  itself  the  best  pos- 
sible opportunity.  A  poor  Italian  boy,  at  school 
in  an  American  city,  has  musical  talent.  He  picks 
up  tunes  by  ear  and  plays  the  piano  when  there 
is  singing  in  the  school.  The  teacher  speaks  of 
him  to  a  wealthy  woman,  who  sends  him  to  a  mu- 
sical instructor.  The  boy  makes  rapid  progress. 
He  practices  four  hours  a  day  besides  attending 
school  five  hours.  He  lives  in  a  home  barely 
raised  above  poverty.  Music  is  the  chief  interest, 
the  consuming  passion,  always  a  change  for  the 
better  from  home  and  school.  Another  boy  in 
better  circumstances  has  as  much  musical  talent. 
He  is  put  under  an  instructor  and  makes  consider- 
able progress.  But  the  chances  are  that  he  will 


58  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEJESS 

aot  be  as  fine  a  pianist  as  the  Italian,  because  lie 
has  other  real  interests  —  reading,  studies,  society, 
amusements.  Above  all,  he  has  no  such  spur  of 
necessity  as  the  other,  to  whom  music  means  a 
livelihood  and  a  career.  The  boy  who  has  every 
opportunity  may  become  a  better  educated  and 
more  cultivated  man  than  the  other,  but  is  not  as 
likely  to  become  a  great  musician.  It  may  be 
said  that  the  teacher  and  the  wealthy  woman  gave 
the  Italian  an  opportunity  which  other  poor  boys 
of  talent  do  not  have,  and  that  this  opportunity  is 
the  very  thing  contended  for,  that  many  poor  boys 
might  be  fine  musicians  if  they  had  such  opportu- 
nity. So,  it  is  said,  there  may  be  potential  schol- 
ars, lawyers,  preachers,  merchants,  and  organizers, 

\    who  would  be  preeminent  in  the  higher  pursuits  if 

\  the  teacher  and  rich  patroness  should  be  raised  up 

to  give  them   opportunity.     Nobody  knows   how 

many  mute,  inglorious  Miltons  are  buried  alive  in 

shops  and  cotton  mills  before  they  are  finally  buried 

.  in  country  churchyards.  This  is  more  than  doubt- 
ful. Their  teachers  do  point  out  promising  pupils 
and  encourage  them.  Their  own  ambitions  push 
them  on.  Their  parents  are  ambitious  for  them. 
With  rare  exceptions  they  find  or  create  opportu- 
nities, and  by  the  very  effort  necessary  for  making 
their  way,  are  developed  in  character  and  talent  as 
they  might  not  be  if  the  doors  of  opportunity  were 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     59 

held  open  for  them,  and  they  were'  kindly  pushed 
along  the  line  of  least  resistance  rather  than  obliged 
to  push  themselves  along  the  line  of  greatest  resist- 
ance. Ten  to  one  the  Italian  would  become  a 
professional  musician  of  some  kind,  patroness  or 
no  patroness.  Necessity  is  often  a  better  friend 
than  opportunity.  The  accident  of  poverty  com- 
pelled George  Eliot  to  write  her  first  story,  "  Amos 
Barton."  The  great  books  and  great  musical  com- 
positions have  come  as  often  from  men  compelled 
by  the  pressure  of  necessity  to  put  their  best  ener- 
gies into  their  work  as  from  those  under  no  other 
pressure  than  ambition.  The  difference  between 
superlative  and  comparative  success  has  often  been 
the  difference  between  the  opportunity  of  compul- 
sion and  the  opportunity  of  ease.  Some  of  Men- 
delssohn's admirers  think  that  he  would  have  taken 
higher  rank  as  a  composer  if,  instead  of  having 
every  advantage,  he  had  been  as  poor  as  other  com- 
posers whose  life  was  a  struggle,  but  who  surpassed 
him. 

The  assumption  that  there  would  be  many  more 
persons  than  there  are  in  the  higher  pursuits,  if 
opportunity  were  opened,  is  questionable.  There 
are  only  a  few  higher  places,  and,  correspondingly, 
there  are  only  a  few  who  have  ability  to  fill  higher 
places.  A  hundred  mechanics  are  needed  where 
one  employer  is  needed.  It  is  as  important  that 


60  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

those  who  are  capable  of  being  good  workmen 
should  be  trained  for  mechanical  pursuits  as .  that 
those  who  are  capable  of  organization  should  be 
/  trained  for  that.  The  notion  that  a  large  number 
of  young  men  should  aspire  to  high  positions  has 
overcrowded  the  learned  professions  in  Germany, 
America,  and  other  countries  with  men  who  are 
doomed  to  failure  in  those  professions,  not  so  much 
Kby  reason  of  the  overcrowding  as  by  reason  of  un- 
fitness,  but  who  would  succeed  in  manual  pursuits. 
I  am  not  maintaining  that  every  one  has  a  suit- 
able opportunity.  The  adjustments  of  society  are 
not  yet  perfect.  I  am  only  claiming  that  external 
opportunity  has  but  a  small  part  in  the  conditions 
of  success,  and  that,  on  the  whole,  persons  of  char- 
acter, ability,  and  energy  do  find  or  make  oppor- 
tunities by  which  they  rise  to  their  proper  level 
in  the  economic,  professional,  and  social  scale.  I 
have  also  hinted  that  opportunity  made  easy  may 
be  an  actual  hindrance  to  success, 
i  There  is  yet  another  form  of  the  demand  for 
lequality  of  opportunity.  It  is  a  demand  for  op- 
portunities of  enjoyment  and  culture  for  those 
who  are  engaged  in  the  various  pursuits  of  life. 
There  should  be  public  libraries,  museums,  parks, 
roads,  baths,  theatres,  concerts,  and  so  forth.  But 
this  is  merely  to  define  the  proper  object  of  good 
government.  Wants  which  are  general  and  can 


EQUALITY  OF  OPPORTUNITY:  PURSUITS     61 

be  supplied  better  by  concerted  than  by  individual 
action  should  be  provided  for  by  the  municipality 
or  the  State.     Some  of  these  wants  are  so  nearly 
universal  that  municipalities  are  not  only  permit- 
ted but  required  by  law  to  supply  them.     These 
public  functions,  of  which  there  will  probably  and 
properly  be  further  extension,  are  mentioned  here 
only  for  the  purpose  of  observing  that  they  do  not 
promote   equal   opportunities.     Schools,   universi-, 
ties,  libraries,  galleries,  operas,  and  circuses  may/ 
yet  be  open  to  all,  but  they  will  not   be   really/ 
open  for  those  who  cannot  appreeiate  them.     Pic- 
ture-galleries are  no  opportunity  to  a  blind  man, 
nor  to  a  man  aesthetically  blind.     Symphonies  are  j 
no  opportunity  to  a  deaf  man,  nor  to  a  man  sestheti- ' 
cally  deaf.     Universities  are  no  opportunity  to  a 
dull  man,  nor  bull-fights  to  a  refined  man.     Even 
if  all  wealth  were  possessed  by  the  community  and 
public  provision  were  made  for  all  wants,  there  - 
could  be  no  equality.     Valuable  books  might  be 
wanted  by  only  one  man.     To  provide  them  for 
him   would    be   unjust,   for    accumulated    wealth 
would  be  limited,  and  money  would  have  to  be 
taken  from  the  common  store  to  endow  libraries, 
leaving  too  little  for  the  prize-fights,  circuses,  and 
bicycles,  which  the  majority  would  prefer. 

Opportunities   can  be   equal  only  if   men  are 
equal.     Men  are   not  equal   now  and  can  never 


62  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

be  made  equal.  At  the  best,  some  obstructing 
mechanisms  can  be  removed.  The  partitions  which 
divide  a  railway  carriage  into  first,  second,  and 
third  class  compartments  may  be  knocked  out,  and 
the  seats  and  fares  made  uniform,  but  the  vender 
of  books  and  magazines,  to  drive  a  brisk  trade, 
must  still  offer  a  considerable  variety. 

What,  now,  is  the  use  of  talking  about  equality 
of  opportunity  under  any  economic  or  political 
system  ?  A  mouse  and  an  ox  may  be  in  the  same 
field,  ranging  over  the  same  area,  but  the  roots 
are  no  opportunity  for  the  ox,  and  the  grass  is  no 
opportunity  for  the  mouse.  (  Neither  can  education, 
pursuits,  and  public  provision  for  comforts  and 
enjoyments  be  equal  opportunities  for  unequal 
persons. 


VIII 

A  FAIR  CHANCE 

BUT  what  is  really  meant,  it  may  be  said,  is  not 
a  literal  equality  of  opportunity  which  will  create 
equal  men,  for  no  one  is  fool  enough  to  suppose 
that  possible.  What  is  meant  is,  for  every  man  a 
fair  chance,  so  that  nothing  shall  stand  in  the  way 
of  his  making  the  most  of  himself  and  the  best  of 
his  powers.  But  that  is  a  very  different  proposi- 
tion from  equality  of  opportunity,  taken  literally 
or  taken  in  any  intelligible  meaning.  For  every;? 
man  a  fair  chance  means  a  chance  of  which  this 
or  that  man  can  avail  himself,  —  a  fair  chance  for 
him.  This  is  the  exact  converse  of  equality  of 
opportunity.  A  fair  chance  for  one  man  is  no1 
chance  at  all  for  another.  There  is  no  chance 
which  is  equally  fair  for  any  two  men  on  earth. 
A  fair  chance  is  a  suitable  opportunity,  such  that 
one  may  do  what  he  is  fitted  to  do,  may  learn  that 
which  is  useful  to  him,  and  may  attain  all  the 
self-improvement  possible.  Fair  is  a  word  which 
means  just  and  right  and  fitting.  It  means  cor- 
respondence of  circumstance  to  person.  It  recog- 


64  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

nizes  the  variety  of  human  powers  and  capacities. 
It  is  the  correlative  of  inequality  rather  than  the 
synonym  of  equality.  It  is  not  fair  to  an  illiterate 
man  to  elect  him  chairman  of  the  school  com- 
mittee. It  puts  him  at  an  enormous  disadvantage 
and  exposes  him  to  ridicule.  It  is  not  fair  to  a 
philosopher  to  keep  him  on  a  shoemaker's  bench, 
spite  of  the  case  of  Boehme,  nor  is  it  fair  to 
others.  It  spoils  a  good  thinker  to  make  a  poor 
shoemaker,  as  conversely  many  a  good  carpenter  is 
spoiled  to  make  a  poor  preacher.  Sutor  ne  supra 
crepidamjudicaret.  "  Blessed  is  the  man  who  has 
found  his  work."  And  blessed  is  the  born  shoe- 
maker who  has  found  and  who  sticks  to  his  last. 
That  is  the  only  fair  chance  for  him.  Surely  he 
has  not  an  equal  opportunity  with  a  statesman, 
although  he  has  just  as  fair  a  chance. 

The  admission  of  those  who  demand  a  nearer 

approach  to  equality  does  not,  in  fact,  go  so  far  as 

/  the  fair  chance  theory  goes.     They  really  believe, 

/     after  all,  that  the  chances  which  are  appropriate 

tend  to  make  men   equal;  that,  if   all  had   fair 

chances,  the  effect  would  be  leveling  up  and  level- 

\        ing  down  ;  and  that,  with  the  disappearance  of  ex- 

\      tremes  in  material  conditions  would  disappear  also, 

\    to  a  considerable  degree,  the  intellectual  differences 

of  men.     This  conclusion  is  more  than  doubtful. 

The  widening  of  opportunity  and  the  betterment 


A  FAIR  CHANCE  65 

of  material  circumstances  which  have  occurred, 
and  even  the  education  which  has  become  so 
general  that  illiteracy  scarcely  exists  in  some 
countries,  have  not  appreciably  reduced  native 
differences,  have,  in  fact,  accentuated  unlikeness. 
Outward  and  material  equality  and  external  oppor- 
tunity of  education  emphasize  intellectual,  aesthetic, 
and  moral  differences,  and  give  the  verbal  para- 
dox of  the  inequality  of  equality.  Even  Bellamy 
has  an  inkling  of  this  paradox,  and  sacrifices  his 
central  principle  to  meet  one  of  the  most  forcible 
objections  to  socialism.  He  says  that  differences 
of  height  are  most  apparent  when  men  stand  on 
level  ground,  that  economic  equality  is  the  leveling 
of  the  ground  which  brings  out  the  natural  inequal- 
ities of  men.  It  did  not  occur  to  him  that  on  un- 
even ground  the  tall  men  gain  the  eminences  and 
the  little  men  are  pushed  into  the  hollows,  and 
that  on  the  same  level  such  accidental  variations 
would  disappear.  But  his  illustration,  spite  of 
himself,  tells  against  his  philosophy  of  equality. 
Thus,  equality  of  opportunity,  even  when  it  is 
translated  into  fair  chance,  is  a  counter,  a  catch- 
word, which  merely  means  that  so  far  as  men  are 
equal,  opportunities  should  be  equal.  But  the 
verry  equalizing  of  opportunity,  as  in  schools,  libra- 
ries, museums,  and  all  that  provides  for  the  intel- 
lectual man,  only  shows  how  unequal  men  are,  that 


66  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

groups  of  equal  men  are  very  small  and  therefore 
very  numerous,  in  fact  throws  us  back  with  in- 
creased force  upon  the  endless  variety  of  individ- 
ual differences  which  proceed  from  the  thousand 
obscure  yet  potent  causes  that  have  produced  a 
human  race  so  diversified  that  no  two  men  can  be 
found  who  are  precisely  alike.  It  has  been  as  wit- 
tily as  sagaciously  observed  that  the  differences 
between  men  are  not  very  great,  but  that  what 
difference  there  is  amounts  to  a  great  deal.  Asa 
Gray  applied  this  to  the  difference  between  man 
and  the  erect  animal  most  nearly  like  man.  The 
resemblances  are  great,  but  the  differences,  slight 
as  they  may  seem,  amount  to  a  great  deal,  amount, 
in  fact,  to  more  than  the  resemblances. 

Stevenson,  with  characteristic  insight  and  hu- 
mor, asking  what  constitutes  a  gentleman,  reverts 
to  causes  which  lie  back  of  the  individual  and  of 
his  personal  culture.  He  says  that  the  ancient  and 
stupid  belief  that  to  belong  to  a  good  family  makes 
one  a  gentleman  implies  a  modern  scientific  theory. 
What  he  says  should  be  repeated  in  his  own  inim- 
itable style :  "  The  ancient  and  stupid  belief  came 
to  the  ground  with  a  prodigious  dust  and  the  col- 
lapse of  several  polities,  in  the  latter  half  of  the 
last  century.  There  followed  upon  this  an  inter- 
regnum, during  which  it  was  believed  that  all  men 
were  born  '  free  and  equal,'  and  it  really  did  not 


A  FAIR  CHANCE  67 

matter  who  your  father  was.  Man  has  always 
been  so  nobly  irrational,  bandaging  his  eyes  against 
the  facts  of  life,  feeding  himself  on  the  wind  of 
ambitious  falsehood,  counting  his  stock  to  be  the 
children  of  the  gods  ;  and  yet  perhaps  he  never 
showed  in  a  more  touching  light  than  when  he  em- 
braced this  boyish  theory.  .  .  .  And  the  ancient 
stupid  belief  having  come  to  the  ground  and  the 
dust  of  its  fall  subsided,  behold  the  modern  scien- 
tific theory  beginning  to  rise  very  nearly  on  the 
old  foundation,  and  individuals  no  longer  (as  was 
fondly  imagined)  springing  into  life  from  God 
knows  where,  incalculable,  untrammeled,  abstract, 
equal  to  one  another  —  but  issuing  modestly  from 
a  race,  with  virtues  and  vices,  fortitudes  and  frail- 
ties, ready  made ;  the  slaves  of  their  inheritance  of 
blood ;  eternally  unequal.  So  that  we  in  the  pre- 
sent, and  yet  more  our  scientific  descendants  in  the 
future,  must  use,  when  we  desire  to  praise  a  char- 
acter, the  old  expression,  gentleman,  in  nearly  the 
old  sense ;  one  of  a  happy  strain  of  blood,  one  for- 
tunate in  descent  from  brave  and  self-respecting 
ancestors,  whether  clowns  or  counts."  l 

The  various  kinds  of  equality  which  find  advo- 
cates have  been  tracked  down  to  their  self-contra- 
dictions and  elusiveness,  partly  because  they  seem 
to  many  to  mark  the  direction  of  progress,  and 

1  Essay  on  Gentlemen. 


68  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

partly  to  show  the  path  along  which  the  real  on- 
ward ascent  of  men  must  slowly  travel.  The  inev- 
itable facts  have  been  pointed  out,  not  merely  that 
the  inevitable  may  be  accepted  rather  than  fought 
against,  but  that  the  positive  advantage  of  inequal- 
ity maybe  recognized  and  utilized.  Negative  crit- 
icism of  untenable  theories  therefore  gives  place, 
through  the  remainder  of  this  essay,  to  positive 
construction. 

NOTE.  —  Poverty  presents  a  problem  which  lies  outside 
the  range  of  this  discussion.  Its  causes  lie  chiefly  in  in- 
competence, lack  of  energy,  bad  heredity,  and  unhealthy 
surroundings,  rather  than  in  a  vicious  economic  system,  or 
in  lack  of  opportunity.  The  relief  of  poverty  has  become  so 
judicious  that  few  poor  persons  are  left  to  suffer  from  want. 
The  prevention  of  poverty  is  to  be  found  in  good  sanitation 
enforced  by  the  municipality,  in  suitable  education  of  indi- 
viduals according  to  capacity,  and  in  self-help,  rather  than 
in  economic  revolutions  or  in  indiscriminate  equality  of  op- 
portunity. 


IX 

VARIETY 

INEQUALITY  is  not  the  only,  nor,  for  most  pur- 
poses, the  best  word  to  express  the  native  and  ac- 
quired unlikenesses  of  men.  It  is  a  negative  word, 
signifying  the  absence  of  equality,  but  affirming 
nothing.  For  that  matter  equality  affirms  nothing. 
It  is  the  connecting  link  (  =  )  between  two  mem- 
bers of  an  equation,  but  the  link  which  means 
"  equal  to  "  does  not  say  whether  it  stands  between 
tons  of  iron  or  bushels  of  wheat,  whether  it  bal- 
ances cattle  or  men  in  the  level  scale.  I  have  used 
the  negative  designation  freely  because  it  is  a 
more  emphatic  denial  of  popular  theories  than  any 
other,  because  it  is  the  only  word  which  meets 
equality  on  its  own  ground.  But  as  I  now  attempt 
to  put  something  into  the  two  sides  of  the  scale, 
the  something  which  makes  one  side  ascend  and 
the  other  side  descend,  I  introduce  words  which 
have  some  positive  significance.  Equality  and 
inequality  are  comparisons  of  things  which  are 
capable  of  quantitative  measurement  and  weighing. 
They  cannot  be  applied  exactly  to  intellectual 


70  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

qualities  nor  to  any  of  the  higher  forms  of  human 
energy.  Power  to  lift  weights  can  be  measured 
exactly.  One  man,  in  that  respect,  is  equal  or 
unequal  to  another.  So  running  two  hundred  feet 
or  vaulting  over  a  bar  is  equal  or  unequal.  Skill 
is  less  capable  of  measurement,  except  in  producing 
mechanical  results,  such  as  the  number  of  yards  of 
cloth  different  persons  can  take  through  two  looms 
in  a  day.  Beyond  muscular  strength  and  skill  pro- 
ducing physical  results,  quantitative  measurements 
are  not  possible.  Resort  must  be  taken  to  indefi- 
nite comparisons,  expressed  by  the  words,  superior 
and  inferior,  higher  and  lower,  better  and  worse, 
better  and  best.  Even  these  terms  are  inexact  and 
sometimes  invidious.  There  is,  however,  one  word 
which  can  give  no  offense,  the  word  "  variety ; "  and 
it  will  now  be  used  to  indicate  the  differing  charac- 
teristics, capabilities,  and  attainments  of  men, 
although  the  other  terms  will  also  be  employed  for 
purposes  of  comparison. 

Society  is  often  compared  to  an  organism,  or 
even  is  regarded  as  a  true  organisjm.  This  com- 
parison or  representation  is  employed  to  illustrate 
the  variety  and  coordination  of  interrelated  func- 
tions. Some  writers  debate  warmly  the  question 
whether  society  is  an  organism  or  not.  Into  that 
debate  we  need  not  enter.  At  the  most,  I  think  a 
vital  organism  is  only  a  simile.  It  may  be  held 


VARIETY  71 

that  society  is  like  an  organism,  but  not  that  so- 
ciety is  an  organism.  Even  as  a  figure,  it  does  not 
apply  in  all  respects,  for  figures  and  similes  never 
do.  The  likeness  fails,  especially  in  respect  to  self- 
consciousness.  A  living  organism  of  many  mem- 
bers has  one  central  self-consciousness,  or,  indeed, 
as  in  the  case  of  plants,  may  have  no  consciousness 
at  all.  Animals  and  men  have  one  consciousness 
conditioned  on  the  mutual  action  and  reaction  of 
the  members.  In  the  social  organism  each  mem- 
ber has  his  own  consciousness,  but  humanity  as  a 
whole  has  no  single  and  central  consciousness.  To 
be  sure,  we  speak  by  accommodation  of  the  social 
consciousness,  the  spirit  of  the  age,  the  Zeitgeist, 
the  national  will ;  we  speak  of  nations,  associations, 
corporations,  churches,  and  humanity  itself,  as  per- 
sons ;  we  apply  personal  pronouns  to  social  wholes. 
But  we  mean  those  purposes  which  numerous  indi- 
viduals have  in  common,  and  through  which  they 
are  able  to  cooperate.  The  figure  of  an  organism 
is,  however,  a  very  apt  figure  to  express  the  variety 
and  coordination^  many  persons  in  society.  So- 
ciety is  regarded  as  almost  identical  in  all  respects 
with  a  true  organism,  just  because  there  is  so  much 
of  unity  in  variety.  Society  that  is  worthy  of  the 
name  can  exist  only  in  the  cooperation  of  variously 
endowed  individuals  in  the  economic,  the  politi- 
cal, the  moral,  the  purely  social,  and  the  religious 


72  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

spheres,  and   in   the  coordination  of   those  great 
interests  one  with  another. 

Coordinated  variety  appears  not  only  in  the 
large  but  in  the  small.  In  any  community  or  cir- 
cle, variety  is  the  law,  the  life,  and  the  bond  of 
society.  Polite  society,  while  certain  convention- 
alities of  dress  and  manner  are  observed  alike  by 
all,  brings  together  persons  of  diverse  gifts.  The 
bond  of  union  and  interest  is  the  contribution  each 
makes  to  the  common  enjoyment.  One  is  over- 
flowing with  information,  another  flashes  with  bril- 
liancy of  repartee,  another  is  a  clever  raconteur, 
another  supplies  musical  skill.  What  agreeable 
society  in  this  place !  it  is  said.  It  is  agreeable 
because,  with  no  clashing,  there  are  so  many  kinds 
of  talents  and  gifts.1  But  there  is  no  thought  of 
inequality.  No  one  attempts  to  decide  or  thinks 
of  deciding  whether  musical  skill  is  equal  to  wit 
or  not.  There  is  no  standard  of  comparison.  Both 
are  enjoyed.  Both  are  components  of  the  pleasure 
which  depends  on  variety  of  contribution.  Musi- 
cians may  receive  pecuniary  compensation,  while 
wits  are  not  yet  paid  for  dining  out.  But  the  value 
of  talents  is  not  measured  by  money.  On  the  larger 
scale  of  civilization  the  functions  of  individuals  are 
various  and  are  related,  but  equality  and  inequality 
need  not  be  emphasized.  The  painting  of  a  pic- 
1  Moral  Evolution,  p.  31. 


VARIETY  73 

ture  is  not  equal  (nor  unequal)  to  the  invention  of 
a  telephone  transmitter.  The  authorship  of  a  book 
is  not  equal  (nor  unequal)  to  the  leadership  of  an 
orchestra.  Successful  banking  is  not  equal  (nor 
unequal)  to  successful  preaching.  Statesmanship 
is  not  equal  (nor  unequal)  to  generalship.  The 
work  of  a  farmer  is  not  equal  (nor  unequal)  to  the 
work  of  an  engineer.  These  are  various  functions, 
all  indispensable  in  the  one  great  body  of  many 
members. 

Neither  are  individuals  exhaustively  inventoried 
by  their  specific  functions  and  contributions.  Pro- 
duction may  be  single  and  reception  various.  One 
may  receive  and  enjoy  more  or  less  than  another 
of  that  which  is  supplied  by  the  various  functions 
of  many  producers.  One  may  have  more  or  less 
capacity  than  another  for  aesthetic  or  intellectual 
appreciation,  and  in  that  sense  the  two  may  be 
regarded  as  unequal.  But,  at  any  rate,  the  several 
functions  which  are  exercised,  and  the  different 
kinds  and  degrees  of  receptiveness,  connote  the 
indispensable  variety  of  civilization. 


PROGRESS  PRODUCES  VARIETY 

THE  progress  of  society  coincides  with  increas- 
ing variety  of  functions  and  tastes.  In  the  next 
section  progress  will  be  definitely  characterized. 
Here  it  is  employed  in  the  usual  and  general  sig- 
nification of  advancing  civilization. 

The  coincidence  of  variety  with  progress  may  be 
observed  under  two  methods.  One  method  is  by 
the  actual  contrast  of  advanced  with  rudimentary 
societies.  Savagery  is  uniformity.  The  principal 
distinctions  are  sex,  age,  size,  and  strength.  Sav- 
\ages  divide  up  the  work  a  little.  They  think  alike 
or  not  at  all,  and  converse  therefore  in  monosylla- 
bles. There  is  scarcely  any  variety,  only  a  horde 
of  men,  women,  and  children.  The  next  higher 
stage,  which  is  called  barbarism,  is  marked  by  in- 
creased variety  of  functions.  There  is  some  divi- 
sion of  labor,  some  interchange  of  thought,  better 
leadership,  more  intellectual  and  aesthetic  cultiva- 
tion. The  highest  stage,  which  is  called  civiliza- 
tion, shows  the  greatest  degree  of  specialization. 
Distinct  functions  become  more  numerous.  Me- 


PEOGEESS  PEODUCES   VAE1ETY  75 

chanical,  commercial,  educational,  scientific,  politi- 
cal, and  artistic  occupations  multiply.     The  rudi- 
mentary societies  are  characterized  by  the  likeness 
W    of  equality ;  the  developed  societies  are  marked  by 
A    I  the  unlikeness  of  inequality  or  variety.     As  we  go 
down,  monotony;  as  we  go  up,  variety.     As  we 
go  down,  persons  are  more   alike ;  as  we  go  up, 
persons  are  more  unlike.     It  certainly  seems,  on 
,  the  surface,  as  though  approach  to  equality  is  de- 
A  cline  towards  the  conditions  of  savagery,  and  as 
though  variety  is  an  advance  towards  higher  civi- 
lization. ^ 

The  other  method  by  which  the  coincidence  of 
variety  with  progress  may  be  observed  is  an  appli- 
cation, at  least  by  way  of  analogy,  of  the  law  of 
evolution  to  social  progress.  The  great  apostle  of 
evolution  finds  a  law  to  which  he  thinks  all  de- 
velopment is  obedient,  the  law  of  movement  from 
homogeneity  to  heterogeneity  and  from  heteroge- 
neity to  unity.  Without  turning  aside  to  examine 
the  entire  meaning  and  the  limitations  of  this  law, 
we  recognize  its  truth  for  the  advance  from  sav- 
agery to  civilization.  The  discoveries,  inventions, 
arts,  and  philosophies  of  men  appear  in  a  certain 
independence  of  one  another,  almost  sporadically. 
Fire,  iron,  utensils,  ornaments,  navigation  hug- 
ging the  shore  or  driven  out  of  sight  of  land,  as- 
tronomy applied  to  navigation,  spears  and  shields 


76  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

instead  of  clubs  and  stones,  black  ships  of  the 
Achaians  and  fortified  walls  of  Troy,  gunpowder, 
dynamite,  electricity,  printing,  a  thousand  appli- 
ances of  construction  and  destruction  are  stumbled 
upon.  Life  is  stirring.  Dead  uniformity  is  broken 
up.  Homogeneity  gives  way  to  heterogeneity. 
The  heterogeneous  acquisitions,  pursuits,  and  am- 
bitions come  into  collision.  Conflict  and  struggle 
ensue.  Quarrels  break  out  between  the  herdsmen 
of  Lot  and  of  Abraham,  between  the  Hebrew  slave 
and  the  Egyptian  taskmaster,  between  baron  and 
serf,  between  king  and  baron,  between  the  nobility 
and  commoners,  between  Protestant  and  Catho- 
lic, between  Cavalier  and  Roundhead,  between 
workmen  and  masters,  between  tradition  and  sci- 
ence, between  science  and  religion.  Homogeneity 
produces  no  variety  and  no  conflict.  Heteroge- 
neity is  collision  on  the  way  to  adjustment.  The 
old  fighting  areas  become  the  settled  country 
of  cooperation  and  unity.  On  the  frontier  the 
elements  of  developing  heterogeneity  are  in  con- 
tention. But  contestants  become  allies.  Each 
receives  from  the  other.  Conquerors  adopt  the 
arts  and  laws  of  the  conquered.  It  has  been  sa- 
gaciously observed  that  after  the  conflict  of  science 
and  religion,  science  is  more  spiritual  and  religion 
is  more  rational.1  They  are  as  different  as  ever, 

1  President  W.  J.  Tucker  in  a   recent  course  of  lectures  at 
Andover  Theological  Seminary. 


PROGRESS  PRODUCES   VARIETY 


as  different  as  light  and  heat,  but  have  the  same 
source  in  the  divine  wisdom,  power,  and  love,  as 
light  and  heat  have  the  same  solar  source.  The 
antagonism  of  heterogeneity  has  given  place  to  the 
coordination  of  higher  unity.  But  the  new  unity 
is  not  the  old  homogeneity.  That  was  uniformity ; 
this  is  unity.  Savagery  and  civilization  are  the 
same  human  family  dwelling  on  the  same  old  mo- 
ther earth.  But  the  wilderness  has  become  a  culti- 
vated field,  and  the  nomad  tribe  has  become  the 
modern  State. 

Mr.  M allock  makes  the  acute  observation  that  ! 
in  savagery  there  is  coordination,  in  civilization   I 
subordination ;  that  is,  that,  while  savages  are  not    ' 
so  many  individuals  working  with  entire  independ- 
ence of  one  another,  each  supplying  all  his   own 
wants,  while  there  is  some  exchange  of  products, 
there  is  no  subdivision  of  labor,  but  only  a  division. 
Some  savages  hunt,  some  fish,  some  build  huts,* 
some  make  rude  clothing,  yet  all  the  processes  of 
each  industry  are  performed  by  the  individual  who    \ 
engages  in  it,  —  a  rude  coordination;  but  in  civi-  ;, 
lization  each  art  is  organized,  each  industry  is  in  y 
many  parts  by  subdivision  and  subordination   of  | 
the  less  to  the  greater,  the  parts  to  the  whole£  | 
Savage  coordination  is  equality.     Civilized  subor-  • 
dination  is  the  inequality  (if  one  chooses  to  call  it 
that)  of  multiplied  variety. 


78  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

When  it  was  believed  that  the  village  commu- 
nity was  the  primitive  society  of  England  and  Ger- 
many and  that  slavery  and  serfdom  followed  as  a 
retrogression  which  survives  in  tenancy  and  wages, 
some  reformers  pictured  that  primitive  state  as  the 
ideal  state  to  which  we  should  return.  There  was, 
yso  the  theory  ran,  common  ownership  of  land  occu- 
pied by  freemen,  with  collective  tillage,  production, 
and  distribution.  It  seems  now  to  be  established 
that  the  large  section  of  land  occupied  and  tilled 
by  a  community  in  cooperation  was  owned  in  every 
case  by  some  powerful  individual,  the  overlord,  who 
exacted  half  or  more  of  the  entire  labor  on  his 
own  land  which  was  interspersed  in  strips  or  was 
adjacent,  or  both,  afterwards  exacted  half  or  more 
of  the  produce,  later  took  money  payments  in  the 
shape  of  annual  rents,  and  finally,  to  some  extent, 
gave  life  and  hereditary  leases,  which  amount  to 
practical  though  limited  ownership ;  that  the  move- 
ment was  from  slavery  and  serfdom  (the  original 
condition)  to  tenancy  and  possession,  that  every 
step  was  a  step  forwards,  not  only  in  improved 
agriculture,  but  also  in  the  betterment  of  the  peo- 
ple in  comfort  and  intelligence.  Even  if  those 
early  communities  were  self-governing  owners  of 
the  soil,  working  and  sharing  equally,  they  were 
but  barely  removed  from  starvation ;  there  was  no 
incentive  to  improved  methods ;  they  repeated  the 


PROGRESS  PRODUCES   VARIETY  79 

old  two-field  and  three-field  cultivation,  and  pur- 
sued the  narrow  circle  of  seedtime  and  harvest  in 
almost  entire  ignorance  of  other  communities.  As 
soon  as  some  individualism  was  permitted,  as  soon 
as  a  farmer  could  have  his  strips  together  instead 
of  scattered,  as  soon  as  he  could  have  the  same  sec- 
tion year  after  year  instead  of  annual  removal  to 
other  sections,  as  soon  as  his  time  was  his  own  and 
he  could  pay  rent,  as  soon  as  a  life  or  hereditary 
lease  made  him  a  private  proprietor,  he  and  the 
whole  community  made  progress.  Agriculture  was 
specialized  and  the  several  products  exchanged; 
some  men  spent  all  their  time  weaving,  shoemak- 
ing,  building  ;  towns  and  cities  grew ;  schools  and 
universities  arose  ;  in  a  word,  there  was  that  variety 
of  agricultural,  mechanical,  commercial,  and  intel- 
lectual pursuits  which  constitutes  civilization  and 
marks  the  path  of  progress. 

The  only  common  ownership  lay  back  of  those 
early  communities  of  serfs  who  were  under  a  lord. 
It  was  the  tribal  system  which  survived  for  a  long 
time  in  Wales  and  elsewhere.  But  that  was  merely 
the  nomadic  life  of  a  few  hundred  men  who  roamed 
over  an  unoccupied  territory,  whose  huts  were  set 
up  on  the  shore  near  good  fishing  ground  and 
abandoned  at  any  time  for  other  locations,  who 
did  not  practice  agriculture  to  any  great  extent, 
and  who  occasionally  huddled  together  under  chiefs 


80  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

to  fight  for  the  protection  of  their  territory  from 
invasion. 

All  signs,  then,  point  in  one  direction.  Equal- 
ity is  retrogression  towards  the  dead  uniformity 
and  precarious  life  of  stupid  savagery,  of  nomadic 
tribes,  and  of  serfdom.  Progress  isjnarked  by 
private  ownership,  by  specializing  of  pursuits,  by 
organization,  by  unity  in  variety. 

Equality  of  individuals  would  make  society  a 
windmill  with  so  many  similar  arms  which  merely 
turn  around  and  around  as  the  wind  may  chance 
to  blow,  and  is  forever  stationary.     At  the  most, 
it  performs  simple  and  irregular  work.     Variety 
of  individuals  makes  society  a  noble  ship,  with  sails 
of  different  shape  and  size,  with  nice  adjustment  of 
ropes  and  pullies,  with  intelligence  at  the  helm,  — 
a  structure  which  takes  advantage  of  every  wind 
and  makes  constant  progress.     I  was  amused  to 
find,  after  I  had  hit  upon  this  comparison,  that 
Mr.  Bellamy  has  chosen  the  windmill  as  the  sym- 
\      bol  of  his  new  society.    From  the  air-ship  in  which 
his  two  chief  personages  floated  over  Boston,  the 
\     dome  of  the  State  House  was  noticed,  and  upon  it 
\    a  huge  windmill  was  perceived.     "  What  on  earth 
\  have  you  stuck  up  there  ?  .  .  .  Surely  that  is  an 
\odd  sort  of  ornament  for  a  public  building."     "It 
is  not  intended  as  an  ornament,  but  a  symbol," 
replied  the  doctor.      "It  represents  the  modern 


PROGRESS  PRODUCES  VARIETY  81 

ideal  of  a  proper  system  of  government.  The  mill 
stands  for  the  machinery  of  administration,  the 
wind  that  drives  it  symbolizes  the  public  will,  and 
the  rudder  that  always  keeps  the  vane  of  the  mill 
before  the  wind,  however  suddenly  or  completely 
the  wind  may  change,  stands  for  the  method  by 
which  the  administration  is  kept  at  all  times  re- 
sponsive and  obedient  to  the  mandate  of  the  peo- 
ple, though  it  be  but  a  breath."  As  they  floated 
over  the  harbor  scarcely  a  ship  was  to  be  seen. 
Commerce  had  ceased  because  each  nation  pro- 
vided for  all  its  own  wants.  With  the  passing 
away  of  the  ship  and  the  enthronement  of  the 
windmill,  we  may  be  well  content  to  let  the  Social- 
ism of  vacillating  equilibrium  revolve  aimlessly, 
and  may  let  those  who  have  no  more  serious  busi- 
ness run  a  tilt  against  it  in  company  with  Don 
Quixote  and  his  squire. 

NOTE.  —  On  page  78  certain  theories  of  the  early  village 
communities  of  England  are  mentioned.  A  new  theory  is 
advocated  in  a  book  recently  published  by  Professor  Mait- 
land  of  the  University  of  Cambridge.  He  thinks  the  early 
settlers  were  freemen,  but  that  there  was  no  common  own- 
ership. According  to  this  theory  the  primitive  state  was 
private  ownership,  and  the  only  communism  was  joint  culti- 
vation by  serfs  at  a  later  period.  There  is  no  comfort  for 
socialists  in  that  theory.  In  any  case,  the  primitive  state 
was,  as  I  said,  but  barely  removed  from  starvation,  and  pro- 
gress followed  the  lines  indicated 


XI 

PROGRESS  AND  WANTS 

IN  the  preceding  section  the  promise  was  made 
that  progress  would  be  more  definitely  character- 
ized in  this  section.  That  promise  should  not 
awaken  the  hope  that  progress  will  be  described 
and  defined  exhaustively;  for,  even  if  that  were 
possible,  a  volume  instead  of  a  short  section  would 
be  required.  In  one  essential  respect,  however, 
progress  can  be  characterized  definitely,  and  in 
that  respect  it  is  closely  related  to  the  variety  and 
corresponding  inequalities  of  men.  Those  condi- 
tions which  are  seen  to  be  advance  rather  than 
stagnation,  onward  movement  rather  than  repeti- 
tion and  retrogression,  have  one  unfailing  mark  or 
note. 

Progress  is  increase  of  legitimate  wants  which 
can  be  satisfied.  The  repeated  satisfaction  of  old 
wants  may  be  a  good  condition,  but  is  not  pro- 
gress. The  individual  makes  progress  by  the  ad- 
dition of  an  enjoyment,  a  knowledge,  a  possession. 
He  makes  a  discovery,  adds  an  accomplishment, 
cultivates  a  taste,  makes  a  friend.  If  he  merely 


PROGRESS  AND   WANTS  83 

rotates  in  a  routine  of  repetition  lie  may  have  many 
satisfactions,  as  one  enjoys  three  meals  every  day 
and  eight  hours'  sleep  every  night,  but  he  is  not 
making  progress.  Society  advances  by  the  con- 
sciousness and  supply  of  new  wants,  from  improved 
methods  of  locomotion  and  communication  to  wid- 
ening knowledge  of  nature  and  history,  to  more 
beautiful  products  of  art,  to  finer  culture,  to  purer 
morality,  and  to  more  spiritual  religion. 

It  is  characteristic  of  man  that  the  supply  of  one 
want  awakens  another  want,  and  that  thus  he  makes 
progress ;  and  also,  since  he  is  not  in  isolation,  but 
feels  wants  in  company  with  and  dependence  on 
his  fellows,  that  thus  society  makes  progress.  I 
take  pleasure  in  quoting  from  a  discerning  writer 
a  statement  which  can  hardly  be  improved :  "  Ex- 
cept the  satisfaction  of  one  want  plants  at  the  same 
time  the  germ  of  another,  there  is  an  end  of  pro- 
gress in  any  given  direction.  Wants^  jtherefore, 
the  most  mysterious  outcome  of  Jbhe  process,  are  at 
the  same  time  its  motive  power.  There  is  no 
intelligent  evolution  without  them.  They  are  the 
rungs  of  the  ladder  by  which  we  mount.  Whence 
they  come  we  know  not.  Why,  when  one  want  is 
satisfied,  another  higher  up  in  the  scale  should 
take  its  place,  we  cannot  begin  to  conceive.  Ra- 
tional creatures  though  we  be,  these  unforeseen 
increments  of  evolution  never  cease  to  surprise  us. 


\ 


84  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

Every  time  a  new  want  makes  its  appearance  we 
awake  to  the  fact  that  we  are  new  creatures.  It 
seemed,  as  we  looked  forward,  as  if  the  require- 
ments of  life  would  be  met  by  the  satisfaction  of 
wants  of  which  we  were  then  conscious.  But  now, 
while  the  old  creature  is  satisfied,  the  new  one  has 
all  the  restlessness  and  importunity  of  youth.  This 
is  the  pledge  to  us  of  the  possibility  of  further  evo- 
lution and  of  attendant  happiness.  The  true  line 
of  progressive  being,  therefore,  is  clearly  indicated 
to  be  that  in  which  there  will  be  no  cessation  of 
wants  that  may  be  progressively  realized." l 

Progress,  then,  consists  in  the  increase  of  wants, 
or,  which  is  the  same  thing,  in  the  development  of 
men  in  the  consciousness  and  satisfaction  of  capa- 
cities and  tastes. 

There  is  apparently  no  limit  to  possible  additions 
of  intellectual,  aesthetic,  moral,  and  religious  devel- 
opment in  the  satisfaction  of  corresponding  wants. 
The  oldest  and,  in  some  respects,  the  most  convin- 
cing argument  for  immortality  is  the  inadequacy 
of  the  present  life  for  possible  attainments  and 
enjoyments.  A  lifetime  is  too  short  for  the  mas- 
tery of  a  single  science;  yet,  so  far  as  capacity 
goes,  given  time  enough,  a  scholar  might  master 
all  the  sciences.  A  thousand  years  would  be  none 
too  long  for  an  intellectual  man  to  attain  the  know- 

1  What  is  Reality  ?  by  Francis  Howe  Johnson,  p.  505. 


PKOGKESS  AND   WANTS  85 

ledge  of  science,  history,  philosophy,  fine  arts,  lit- 
erature, languages,  and  religions,  which  is  now  at- 
tained in  separate  portions  by  many  men.  One 
must  be  content,  just  for  want  of  time,  to  leave 
vast  regions  of  knowledge  unexplored,  although 
one  is  conscious  of  capabilities  which  would  enable 
him  to  traverse  them  intelligently.  So  the  scholar 
marks  out  his  one  line  and  follows  it,  nor  presumes 
to  boast  that  all  knowledge  is  his  province.  Only 
a  beginning  has  been  made  in  those  moral  dis- 
cernments, obligations,  and  reciprocities  which  will 
make  the  perfectly  good  man  in  the  perfectly  good 
society.  To  a  future  century  the  moralities  of  to- 
day may  seem  as  crude  as  the  rude  bravery,  the 
bristling  honor,  and  the  coarse  customs  of  "  Merrie 
England  "  seem  to  us.  For  communities,  nations, 
society  at  large,  no  limit  is  defined  beyond  which 
progress  in  the  awakening  and  supply  of  wants 
cannot  go.  Sounder  economics,  wiser  and  purer 
politics,  more  equitable  jurisprudence,  finer  aesthet- 
ics, better  ethics,  more  humane  and  spiritual  reli- 
gion are  easily  imagined  and  confidently  expected. 
Progress  of  the  individual  and  of  society,  which  is 
individuals  in  relations,  consists  of  accretions  of 
knowledge,  justice,  beauty,  and  goodness,  which 
are  gained  by  degrees  as  the  desires  for  them 
strengthen  into  felt  and  imperative  wants.  There 
is  no  known  limit  to  the  development  of  men  in 


86  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

the  awakening  and  satisfaction  of  various  wants, 
and  therefore  no  limit  to  the  advance  of  society 
in  the  progressive  realization  of  wants.  Without 
lingering  to  discriminate  between  wants  the  satis- 
faction of  which  promotes  well-being  and  fancied 
wants  the  satisfaction  of  which  is  injurious,  and 
without  lingering  to  observe  that  different  indi- 
viduals have  different  wants,  I  proceed  at  once  to 
consider  the  relation  of  progress  through  the  sat- 
isfaction of  legitimate  wants  to  the  inequality  and 
variety  of  individuals. 


XII 

VARIETY  PRODUCES   PROGRESS 

{  COMPARISON  of  developed  with  rudimentary  so- 
cieties has  shown  that  progress  results  in  variety 
of  functions.'*!  It  now  appears,  in  view  of  the  rela- 
tion of  progress  to  wants,  that  variety  of  functions 
is  a  necessary  condition  of  progress.  The  differen- 
tiation of  individuals,  which  is  indicated  in  their 
various  capacities  and  pursuits,  is  a  cause  quite  as 
much  as  a  result.  It  both  constitutes  and  produces 
progress. 

If  wants  are  to  be  satisfied,  supply  must  corre- 
spond to  demand.  If  wants  are  numerous,  sources 
of  supply  must  be  various.  -Existing  wants,  for 
which  provision  is  constantly  made  in  large  mea- 
sure, are  satisfied  by  the  contributions  of  many  dis- 
similar producers.  Provision  for  one  person  for 
a  single  day  is  made  by  numerous  toilers.  The 
food  and  clothing  one  needs  are  supplied  from 
all  parts  of  the  world  by  manifold  kinds  of  labor 
and  skill.  Transportation  from  place  to  place  is 
provided  by  an  army  of  inventors,  constructors  of 
vehicles,  engine-drivers,  and  motor-men.  The  news- 


88  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

papers  and  books  one  reads,  the  music  one  enjoys, 
the  pictures  one  admires,  the  plays  one  witnesses, 
supply  wants  by  the  productiveness  of  many  hand 
and  brain  workers.  One  adds  his  daily  mite  to 
the  common  store,  and  draws  out  in  return  the 
comforts  and  enjoyments  of  his  own  life.  Should 
no  more  be  done  than  to  maintain  present  condi- 
tions, should  men  have  only  the  advantages  of 
existing  civilization,  a  great  variety  of  unlike  and 
unequal  functions  must  be  exercised.  Certainly, 
then,  if  progress  is  to  be  made  by  added  satisfac- 
tions, there  must  be  even  more  variety  of  func- 
tions, new  and  finer  differentiations  of  training  and 
pursuits.  '  Every  step  of  progress  means  the  addi- 
tion of  a  humanlactor  that  is  in  some  way  unlike 
all  existing  factors.  \  The  progress  of  civilization, 
then,  cannot  be  a  nearer  approach  to  equality,  but 
must  be  an  increasing  diversification  of  the  indi- 
/  viduals  that  compose  society,  a  more  complicated 
'f<and  not  a  more  simple  organism.  There  must  be 
articulation  of  each  new  invention  and  art,  of  fresh 
knowledge,  and  of  broader  application  of  moral  prin- 
ciples with  the  organisms  into  which  they  are  in- 
troduced. The  new  factors  multiply  the  power  of 
those  factors  which  are  already  active,  as  a  little 
cog  inserted  at  the  right  place  in  a  mechanism 
doubles  the  revolutions  and  the  transmitted  powers 
of  all  the  wheels. 


VARIETY  PRODUCES  PROGRESS  89 

Beyond  the  most  meagre  margin,  the  individual 
cannot  supply  his  own  wants,  but,  as  he  advances, 
is  more  and  more  dependent  on  others.  He  who 
does  all  for  himself  leads  a  starved  and  empty 
life.  When  as  consumer  an  individual  is  the  only 
customer  of  himself  as  producer ;  when  he  engages 
in  no  traffic  with  another  as  buyer  or  seller,  if  such 
a  condition  were  possible,  he  is  a  man  reduced  to 
the  lowest  terms,  not  so  much  of  a  man  as  a  savage 
in  a  tribe ;  he  is  a  wild  man  of  the  woods. 

All  this  is  commonplace  which  may  seem  to  be 
hardly  worth  stating.  Of  course  we  all  are  depend- 
ent on  one  another,  and  become  more  and  more 
dependent  as  wants  increase,  as  life  is  more  rich 
and  various,  as  anything  worthy  the  name  of  pro- 
gress is  achieved.  But  these  trite  facts  play  havoc 
with  theories  of  equality.  They  emphasize  the 
growing  variety  and  difference  of  persons.  They 
show  that  the  nearer  man  and  society  approach  the 
ideal  state,  the  more  unlike  do  individuals  become ; 
that  even  if  all  have  the  same  amount  of  money  in 
their  pockets,  they  will  use  their  money  in  ways  as 
different  as  wants,  desires,  tastes,  and  capacities  are 
different,  if  for  no  other  reason  just  because  wants, 
which  are  many  and  various,  must  be  supplied  by 
individuals  who  are  unlike  in  skill  and  capacity. 


\ 


XIII 

SUPERIORITY 

THE  word  "superiority"  which  was  laid  aside 
lest  it  should  seem  invidious  may  now  be  employed 
without  offense.  Every  one  who  contributes  to 
the  supply  of  legitimate  and  increasing  wants  is, 
in  respect  to  his  contribution,  superior  to  others, 
at  least  in  the  sense  that  others  are  dependent  on 
him.  Those  who  satisfy,  for  themselves  and  for 
others,  the  higher  wants,  may  be  regarded  as  su- 
perior to  those  who  satisfy  only  the  lower  wants. 
Above  the  plane  of  material  wants  (although  va- 
riety of  function  is  necessary  even  to  material  pro- 
duction) are  intellectual,  political,  and  aesthetic 
wants,  for  the  satisfaction  of  which  there  must  be 
some  persons  who  are  superior  to  others.  A  youth 
desires  education.  He  must  put  himself  under 
teachers  who  are  his  superiors,  or  at  least  must 
have  recourse  to  books  written  by  those  who  have 
already  attained  the  knowledge  he  wishes  to  ac- 
quire. Directly  or  indirectly  wisdom  is  received 
from  other  minds.  Is  a  man,  exactly  like  me,  who 
knows  no  more  than  I  know,  to  make  provision  for 


\SUPEEIORITY  91 

my  intellectual  wants  ?  There  is  no  such  thing  as^ 
\  a  self-taught  man,  as  there  is  no  such  thing  as  a 
tself-made  man.  When  a  purse-proud  merchant 
Isaid  to  a  would-be  son-in-law,  "  I  am  a  self-made 
man,  sir,"  there  was  justice  in  the  reply,  "You 
are  under  no  obligation  to  confess  to  me."  One 
who  desires  to  be  a  pianist  looks  for  a  teacher  who 
excels  in  technique,  touch,  and  interpretation,  or 
has  at  least  been  a  pupil  of  some  great  master. 
Superiority  is  insisted  upon.  That  there  may  be 
learners  there  must  be  teachers  in  advance  of  the 
students.  The  proficiency  and  talent  of  a  few  is 
the  necessary  condition  of  the  progress  of  the 
many. 

But  who  teaches  the  teachers  ?  They  teach  one 
another.  The  teacher  himself,  not  being  omni- 
scient, learns  from  those  who  have  the  knowledge 
he  does  not  possess.  The  philosopher  must  know 
something  of  science.  But  a  lifetime  is  required 
for  the  mastery  of  a  single  science.  The  philoso- 
pher, who  relates  facts  to  principles,  must  be  con- 
tent to  take  results  which  specialists  have  obtained. 
e^  He  regards 


them  as  authorities  before  whom  he  bows,  as  they, 
in  turn,  should  bow  before  him  as  an  authority 
in  his  own  province,  although  scientists  have  at- 
tempted, to  their  confusion,  to  be  their  own  philo- 
sophers of  tener  than  philosophers  have  tried  to  be 


92  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

their  own  scientists.  The  biologist  teaches  the  ge- 
ologist, they  teach  the  philosopher  and  are  taught 
by  him,  and  the  poet  teaches  them  all.  Each, 
in  some  particular,  is  superior  to  the  others,  and 
each  discovering,  in  his  own  line  of  research,  new 
facts  and  truths,  stands,  for  a  time,  the  superior  of 
all,  a  purveyor  to  a  new  want  which  his  discovery 
supplies. 

This  is  just  as  true  in  politics.  Laws  are  not 
self-evident  to  all  men.  Government  is  not  auto- 
matic. There  must  be  those  who  understand  the 
structure  and  needs  of  society,  who  have  know- 
ledge of  political  principles,  who  know  what  in- 
terests should  be  left  to  individuals,  and  what 
provinces  of  action  should  be  regulated  by  law, 
and  to  whom  authority  is  delegated  for  the  en- 
actment and  execution  of  laws.  It  will  not  be 
claimed  that  all  citizens  are  equally  well  fitted  to 
legislate  for  the  million.  There  are  enough  fit 
men  in  the  United  States  to  govern  the  nation 
aright.  If  the  right  men  were  in  the  right  places 
welfare  and  progress  would  be  promoted.  The 
mischief  is  that  superior  knowledge  and  fitness  are 
not  recognized  and  enthroned. 

The  interests  of  economics  furnish  no  excep- 
tion to  the  dependence  of  progress  on  superiority. 
There  must  be  organization  and  therefore  organ- 
izers. There  must  be  workmen  under  direction. 


SUPERIORITY  93 

Development  of  productiveness,  increase  of  wealth, 
and  proper  distribution  of  goods  are  possible  as  \ 
superior  persons  invent  and  control.  Such  persons  | 
cannot  be  drawn  by  lot  nor  chosen  before  trial,  t 
They  must  be  created  under  strong  incentives  and  t. 
competitions,  which  are  the  conditions  of  selection 
for  important  functions.  Economic  evils  are  due 
to  the  control  of  incompetent  and  unprincipled 
men  and  to  the  misplacement  of  competent  men 
in  subordinate  positions ;  to  grants  of  artificial 
monopoly  and  to  corrupt  legislation,  rather  than 
to  a  system  which  offers  rewards  in  the  shape  of 
well-earned  profits,  or  to  unequal  sharing  of  mate- 
rial values. 

The  socialist  colony  of  Kuskin,  in  Tennessee, 
has  a  number  of  by-laws,  one  of  which  is :  "  Every 
member  of  this  Association  shall  surrender  his 
natural  freedom  which  leads  him  to  disregard  the 
rights  of  others,  for  the  sake  of  civil  or  social  free- 
dom, which,  being  based  upon  the  principles  of 
justice,  has  regard  for  his  rights  and  for  the  rights 
of  all."  The  question  at  once  arises,  To  whom  is 
natural  freedom  surrendered?  Evidently  to  cer- 
tain persons  who  are  supposed  to  be  better  capable 
than  others  of  managing  the  affairs  of  the  colony. 
Therefore  another  by-law  provides  that  "  all  orders 
of  foremen  and  superintendents  must  at  all  times 
be  obeyed."  This  is  the  only  possible  condition 


94  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  successful  business,  although,  if  individual  free- 
dom is  relinquished,  it  may  easily  be  perverted  to 
tyranny. 

I  have  said  that  every  productive  person  is  in 
some  respects  superior  to  others.  It  may  now  be 
observed  that  two  conditions  are  necessary  to  pro- 
gress :  one,  that  each  make  the  most  and  the  best 
of  himself,  a  condition  in  which  he  is  dependent  on 
his  many  superiors;  the  other,  that  each  render 
the  service  of  which  he  is  capable  in  promoting  the 
welfare,  the  knowledge,  or  the  enjoyment  of  others, 
a  condition,  in  respect  to  such  service  rendered, 
in  which  he  is  their  superior.  Then  there  can  be 
progress  all  along  the  line,  each  person  communi- 
cating a  pull  which  is  felt  at  all  points  and  by  all 
persons. 


XIV 

ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY 

AT  the  top  and  in  the  lead  should  be  the  real 
aristocracy.  That  good  word  has  suffered  a  per- 
version which  has  nearly  destroyed  its  signification. 
Aristocracy  means  the  rule  of  the  best.  If  the 
best  men  have  guidance  and  control,  progress  is 
constantly  made.  If  the  real  aristocracy  is  set 
aside  in  favor  of  the  incompetent,  there  is  confu- 
sion and  every  evil  work.  Honor  to  the  Greeks, 
who  coined  the  word  that  stands  for  the  rule  of  the 
best.  When  the  word  is  corrupted  so  that  it  signi- 
fies pride  of  rank,  or  birth,  or  wealth,  with  com- 
pulsion of  menial  service  from  others,  with  indo- 
lence and  luxuriousness,  both  parts  of  the  word 
I  lose  their  original  meaning.  The  first  part  no 
longer  means  the  best,  but  comes  to  mean  the 
Tvorst ;  the  latter  part  no  longer  means  ruling,  but 
means  exaction  of  homage.  But  there  are  those 
who  are  fitted  to  be  a  political,  an  economic,  an 
intellectual  aristocracy.  Place  them  in  their  use- 
ful and  rightful  positions,  let  the  aristocracy  of 
merit  be  enthroned  as  well  as  acknowledged,  and 


96  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

there  will  be  that  government,  that  national  wel- 
fare, and  that  culture  which  constitute  well-being 
and  insure  progress.  A  great  overturning  there 
might  be,  indeed.  Some  who  are  first  would  be 
last,  and  some  who  are  last  would  be  first.  Some 
who  are  exalted  would  be  abased,  and  some  who 
are  abased  would  be  exalted.  But  there  would 
still  be  a  few  first,  a  few  last,  and  a  multitude  at 
all  points  between.  The  ideal  society  would,  no 
doubt,  reverse  many  positions  of  the  actual  society. 
We  are  told  in  the  Talmud  of  a  young  Jew  who 
had  quitted  the  sphere  of  earth,  but  was  permitted 
to  return  to  it  and  give  his  impressions  of  heaven 
and  hell.  "What  hast  thou  seen  in  the  other 
world,  my  son  ?  "  asked  the  Eabbi  Levi,  his  father. 
"I  have  seen  an  inverted  world;  they  who  here 
were  highly  exalted  were  abased  in  the  depths ; 
they  who  are  last  here  take  there  the  highest  place." 
"  It  is  the  true  world  thou  hast  seen,  my  son,"  said 
the  elder  Eabbi.1  But  even  in  the  ideal  state  there 
is  no  dead  level  of  equality. 

Francis  Galton  2  classified  Englishmen  according 
to  ability  and  reputation  in  seven  grades,  from  A, 
the  lowest,  to  G,  the  highest.  He  found  two  hundred 
and  fifty  thousand  in  a  million  in  the  lowest  grade, 
a  decreasing  proportion  in  each  superior  grade, 

1  The  Message  of  Israel ,  by  Julia  Wedgwood. 

2  Hereditary  Genius. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY  97 

and  only  fourteen  in  the  highest,'  with  one  left 
over,  marked  X,  standing  solitary  and  alone  above 
G,  carrying  his  flag  high  above  the  social  pyramid. 
An  accurate  classification  might  have  employed  all 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  or  even  have  used  a 
million  numerals  to  designate  the  differences  in  a 
million  people,  but  there  would  still  be  the  few 
who  by  intellectual  superiority  and  unbounded^ 
energy  are  the  born  leaders,  teachers,  judges, 
rulers,  and  benefactors,  —  the  genuine  aristocracy. 
Otto  Ammon 1  points  out  the  striking  fact  that 
the  idea  of  equality  originated  with  the  aristocracy. 
"v "  The  principle,"  he  says,  "  of  equality  springs 
originally  from  the  circle  of  the  nobility,  and  was 
first  applied  to  all  men  by  the  ideas  of  the  French 
Revolution.  But  aristocratic  equality  is  altogether 
different  from  democratic  equality.  The  former 
limits  itself  downwards  against  the  pressing  in  of 
inharmonious  elements,  and  it  has  a  deep  thought ; 
pne  shall  be  as  much  as  another,  no  one  less. 
Democratic  equality  limits  itself  upwards;  one 
shall  be  as  little  as  another,  no  one  more  I  Who- 
ever in  spirit  and  character  is  superior  shall  be 
dragged  down  into  the  dust,  so  that  his  presence 
may  not  violate  the  principle."  Neither  of  these 
notions  is  correct.  The  true  principle  is,  to  every 

1  Die  Gesellschaftsordnung  und  ihre  Naturlichen  Grundlagen, 
pp.  194, 195. 


98  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

man  his  work,  his  place,  and  his  right,  without 
regard  to  less  or  more.  But  the  vivid  contrast  of 
ideas  makes  the  two  tendencies  distinct  and  implies 
the  truth  that  there  are  superior  functions,  and 
therefore  must  be  superior  men.  It  implies  that, 
if  superior  functions  are  in  abeyance,  or  still  worse, 
if  inferior  men  attempt  to  exercise  functions  of 
leadership,  progress  will  be  arrested. 

The  French  writer  who  has  already  been  cited 
applies  to  the  true  leaders  and  teachers,  upon 
whom  national  and  racial  progress  chiefly  depends, 
a  word  signifying  well-born,  the  word  eugeniques. 
He  applies  it  to  those  who  are  superior  by  reason 
of  ability,  energy,  and  character.  By  well-born  he 
does  not  mean  an  hereditary  nobility  and  gentry, 
but  those  whose  ancestry  combines  the  best  physi- 
cal and  intellectual  qualities.  He  maintains  that 
in  the  golden  age  of  Greece  the  really  great  men 
bore  rule  in  politics,  philosophy,  and  art.  He  be- 
lieves that  the  vitality,  enterprise,  and  expansion 
of  the  Anglo-Saxons  is  due  to  fortunate  strains  of 
blood  and  the  leadership  of  the  true  eugeniques. 
He  contends  that  the  decadence  of  the  French  is  to 
be  attributed  to  inferior  racial  mixture  and  to  the 
promotion  of  inferior  men  to  positions  of  power. 
He  finds  scientific  evidence  of  his  opinion  in  cra- 
nial measurements,  the  long-headed  peoples  being 
progressive  and  the  short-headed  peoples  being 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY  99 

decadent.  I  cannot  go  with  Lapouge  to  all  his 
conclusions.  But  he  stands  on  important  facts. 
I  am  willing  to  go  with  him  the  mile,  although  he 
shall  not  compel  me  to  go  with  him  twain.  The 
fact  that  progress  depends  on  the  rule,  or  at  least 
on  the  influence  and  service  of  those  who  by  inher- 
itance and  development  are  endowed  with  superior 
gifts,  is  a  fact  which  should  be  gladly  acknow- 
ledged. 

Eeturning  to  Ammon,  I  agree  with  him  that 
the  chief  hindrances  to  progress  are  unfitness, 
misplacement,  and  maladjustment.  He  points  out 
several  conditions  of  that  sort  which  are  detrimen- 
tal. He  regards  it  as  detrimental  when  gifted  men 
are  obliged  to  employ  themselves  in  subordinate 
positions  and  are  hindered  from  passing  to  their 
appropriate  places ;  when  incompetent  and  senes- 
cent persons  are  retained  in  responsible  offices ; 
when  talented  but  ill-balanced  and  prejudiced  men 
are  set  to  administer  justice;  when  the  leading 
class  have  excessive  power  and  legislate  in  their 
own  interest,  or  the  centre  of  gravity  is  shifted  to 
the  under  classes  which  lack  the  insight  requisite 
to  right  decisions,  or  the  whole  social  interest  is 
directed,  even  if  sympathetically,  upon  the  prole- 
tariat ;  when  the  household  economy  of  the  higher 
classes  presses  so  hard  that  anxiety  about  daily 
bread  prevents  free  service  to  the  community ; 


100  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

when  the  independent  position  of  the  middle  class 
is  lost;  when  skilled  workmen  have  no  assured 
employment;  when,  in  the  education  of  youth, 
school  organization  subjects  all  pupils  to  the  old- 
fashioned  classical  training  and  does  not  educate 
in  accordance  with  their  personal  bent  for  mercan- 
tile, industrial,  and  scientific  pursuits ;  and,  in  gen- 
eral, when  competition  is  hindered  and  the  develop- 
ment of  energy  is  arrestedX  If  the  worst  men  and 
\  j_^»r 

the  least  capable  come  into  control,  on  the  assump- 
\  tion  that  one  man  is  as  good  as  another,  the  aris- 
tocracy of  merit  is  replaced  by  a  misrule  which 
deserves  the  ill-meaning  and  ill-sounding  designa- 
tion, kakistocracy,  the  rule  of  the  worst,  f 

The  task  of  democracy  is  practically  achieved 
when  it  invariably  selects  the  aristocracy  of  merit 
and  capacity  for  the  highest  functions,  and  matches 
position  to  fitness  all  the  way  up  and  down  the 
line.  This,  indeed,  is  the  fundamental  principle^ 
pf  democracy,  not  to  make  all  men  equal,  but  to 
recognize  superiority  and  to  place  power  in  the 
hands  of  the  wisest  and  most  capable  men,  always 
to  put  the  right  man  in  the  right  place  and  to 
consign  the  hustling  demagogue  to  the  privacy  of 
well-earned  obscurity.  Democracy  should  replace 
the  aristocracy  which  depends  on  accident  of  birth 
by  the  aristocracy  of  merit,  should  set  aside  the 
1  Die  Gesellschqftsordnung,  pp.  189-192. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY          101 

aristocracy  which  buys  place  with  gold  for  that 
which  earns  place  by  capability  and  distinguished 
service.  But  when  democracy  stands  for  a  great 
leveling  down  and  a  slight  leveling  up,  when  it  will 
have  no  aristocracy  at  all,  its  doom  is  sealed. 

That  the  task  of  democracy  is  recognition  of  the 
true  aristocracy,  municipal  and  national  problems 
plainly  show.  When  closely  packed  populations 
unite  under  one  government  to  become  the  chief 
metropolis  of  a  State  and,  indeed,  of  the  nation, 
it  is  seen  that  the  prosperity  and  the  political 
health  of  the  municipality  depend  almost  entirely 
on  electing  to  the  magistracy  the  most  capable, 
intelligent,  and  honest  citizen,  and  on  electing  as 
heads  of  departments  those  citizens  who  are  best 
fitted  by  success  in  business  and  public  affairs  to 
conduct  those  departments.  It  is  seen  that  the 
worst  calamity  is  promotion  of  dishonest  and  in- 
capable men  to  a  control  so  responsible.  The  laws 
of  the  charter  may  be  ever  so  good,  but  will  be  in- 
efficient in  the  hands  of  bad  or  inferior  men.  The 
laws  may  be  imperfect,  and  yet  if  they  are  enforced 
by  suitable  men,  the  city  will  be  well  governed. 

The  jubilee  which  celebrates  the  sixtieth  anni- 
versary of  the  coronation  of  Queen  Victoria  has 
been  the  occasion  of  many  inquiries  into  the  rea- 
sons of  the  wonderful  expansion  of  Great  Britain 
during  her  long  reign,  an  expansion  unequaled  by 


102  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

any  nation  in  any  period  of  history.  One  writer, 
after  making  allowance  for  the  improved  mecha- 
nisms of  the  century,  —  steam,  electricity,  railroads, 
telegraphs,  telephones,  all  that  multiplication  of 
forces  which  enables  one  man  to  do  the  work  of  a 
hundred  men,  which  makes  what  were  formerly 
the  luxuries  of  the  rich  the  necessaries  and  con- 
veniences of  all,  but  which  are  the  common  posses- 
sion of  all  the  civilized  nations  ;  and  after  making 
allowance  for  the  freedom  which  has  struck  off 
many  shackles  from  trade  and  given  political  rights 
to  all,  and  which  was  long  regarded  as  a  panacea 
for  all  evils,  —  calls  attention  to  another  cause 
without  which  freedom  would  be  a  fiction,  a  cause 
which  has  given  England  her  superiority  over  other 
nations  for  the  last  half  century. 

"But  freedom  is  not  all.  There  is  something 
else  in  the  progress  of  England  in  this  century  of 
which  we  are  conscious,  something  that  we  do  not 
perhaps  always  like  to  acknowledge,  but  which, 
notwithstanding  our  own  millions  and  our  own 
wealth,  we  may  well  envy  her.  There  is  no  word 
for  it  in  the  dictionaries,  it  is  not  celebrated  on 
tombstones  or  in  biographies,  but  it  is  a  quality 
without  which  no  nation  or  individual  has  ever 
made  any  stable  progress  in  the  history  of  the 
world  —  perhaps  we  should  say  an  assemblage  of 
qualities  which  may  be  more  easily  traced  in  the 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY          103 

effects  they  produce  than  named.  In  this  century 
for  the  first  time  a  great  power,  comparable  at  its 
height  only  to  that  of  Rome,  has  come  upon  the 
scene,  which  has  known  how,  in  every  department 
of  government,  to  select  the  best  man  for  the  work. 
The  English  judge,  the  English  parliamentary 
leader  and  minister,  the  English  consul,  ambassa- 
dor, civil  servant,  and  military  and  naval  officer, 
form  a  body  of  public  men  such  as  hardly  any 
other  country  possesses,  and  certainly  such  as  Eng- 
land never  possessed  before.  Not  merely  is  there 
no  corruption  among  them,  but  they  form  a  natu- 
ral class e  dirigeante  —  they  are  as  nearly  as  may 
be  the  picked  men  of  the  country.  In  other  words, 
the  English  public  service  draws  to  itself  the  char- 
acter and  intelligence  of  the  whole  country,  and 
those  who  govern  are  in  a  larger  measure  than  any- 
where else  in  the  world  those  who  ought  to  govern." 
The  writer  adds  that  "  for  this  scheme  of  gov- 
ernment it  was  necessary,  not,  as  was  supposed  in 
the  last  century,  that  we  should  have  a  new  heaven 
and  a  new  earth,  but  that  the  notion  of  privilege 
should  be  replaced  by  that  of  a  trust,  and  that  im- 
provement should  be  sought  through  the  enlight- 
ened discharge  of  duty  and  not  through  aggression. 
The  example  of  England  shows  that  hereafter  this 
view  of  government  is  the  only  one  for  those  who 
do  not  wish  to  fall  back  into  the  night  of  despotism 


104  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

and  decay.  Whenever  England  has  followed  this 
path,  prosperity  and  power  have  attended  her; 
whenever  she  has  relapsed  into  the  old  system,  as 
has  been  more  than  once  the  case  in  foreign  affairs, 
the  result  has  been  disaster  and  humiliation." 1 
This,  in  some  respects,  is  a  rose-colored  view,  par- 
donable in  the  year  of  jubilee.  England  is  not 
without  English  (and  Irish)  critics,  as  witness 
Lecky's  "  Democracy."  Such  criticism  is  a  healthy 
and  hopeful  sign.  But  the  writer  quoted  has  un- 
doubtedly hit  upon  the  cause  of  the  expansion  and 
prosperity  of  England  in  this  century.  It  is  de- 
mocracy placing  the  reins  in  the  hands  of  its  real 
aristocracy. 

Mr.  Godkin,  writing  on  the  "  Decline  of  Legisla- 
tures," finds  the  reason  for  the  decline  in  the  inferi- 
ority of  the  members.  He  says :  "It  is  increasingly 
difficult  to  get  a  man  of  serious  knowledge  on  any 
subject  to  go  to  Congress  if  he  have  other  pursuits 
and  other  sources  of  income.  To  get  him  to  go  to 
the  State  legislature,  in  any  of  the  populous  and 
busy  States,  is  well-nigh  impossible."  When  Con- 
gress adjourns,  and  when  the  legislature  adjourns, 
a  sense  of  relief  pervades  the  community.  Mr. 
Godkin  contrasts  legislatures  with  Constitutional 
Conventions,  which  command  the  highest  respect, 
and  shows  that  the  chief  difference  is  in  the  supe- 
1  The  Nation,  June  24,  1897. 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY          105 

rior  ability  and  character  of  the  members  of  Con- 
ventions.    His  own  language  should  be  given :  — 

"  Side  by  side  with  the  annual  or  biennial  legis- 
lature we  have  another  kind  of  legislature,  the 
'  Constitutional  Convention,'  which  retains  every- 
body's respect,  and  whose  work,  generally  marked 
by  care  and  forethought,  compares  creditably  with 
the  legislation  of  any  similar  body  in  the  world. 
Through  the  hundred  years  of  national  existence  it 
has  received  little  but  favorable  criticism  from  any 
quarter.  It  is  still  an  honor  to  have  a  seat  in  it. 
The  best  men  in  the  community  are  still  eager  or 
willing  to  serve  in  it,  no  matter  at  what  cost  to 
health  or  private  affairs.  I  cannot  recall  one  con- 
vention which  has  incurred  either  odium  or  con- 
tempt. Time  and  social  changes  have  often  frus- 
trated its  expectations,  or  have  shown  its  provisions 
for  the  public  welfare  to  be  inadequate  or  mistaken, 
but  it  is  very  rare  indeed  to  hear  its  wisdom  and 
integrity  questioned.  In  looking  over  the  list  of 
those  who  have  figured  in  the  conventions  of  the 
State  of  New  York  since  the  Eevolution,  one  finds 
the  name  of  nearly  every  man  of  weight  and  pro- 
minence; and  few  lay  it  down  without  thinking 
how  happy  we  should  be  if  we  could  secure  such 
service  for  our  ordinary  legislative  bodies."  1 

1  "The  Decline  of  Legislatures,"  by  E.  L.  Godkin,  D.  C.  L.: 

The  Atlantic  MontMy,  July,  1897. 


106  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

A  wise  man  said  of  the  Christian  society :  "  God 
hath  set  some  in  the  Church;  first  apostles,  secondly 
prophets,  thirdly  teachers,  then  gifts  of  healing, 
helps,  governments,  divers  kinds  of  tongues."  The 
divine  order  in  the  Church  is  the  order  of  nature 
in  all  progressive  human  societies.  By  endow- 
ment and  by  corresponding  increment  of  training 
God  hath  set  some  in  society :  first  poets,  preachers, 
and  philosophers ;  secondly  statesmen  and  legisla- 
tors ;  thirdly  teachers,  scientists,  and  inventors ; 
then  merchants,  manufacturers,  navigators,  military 
commanders,  mechanics,  farmers,  spinners,  miners, 
clerks,  cooks,  butlers,  tailors,  athletes.  Are  all 
philosophers  ?  are  all  statesmen  ?  are  all  inventors  ? 
are  all  mechanics  ?  are  all  weavers,  cooks,  or  tail- 
ors? But  the  poet  cannot  say  to  the  farmer,  I 
have  no  need  of  thee ;  nor  yet  the  weaver  to  the 
statesman,  I  have  no  need  of  thee.  The  same  wise 
man  said  that,  in  the  harmony  of  mutual  regard 
and  service,  persons  are  not  exhaustively  defined 
by  nationality,  status,  and  sex;  there  is  neither 
Greek  nor  Jew,  there  is  neither  bond  nor  free, 
there  is  neither  male  nor  female,  but  all  are  one 
(not  equal)  in  Christ  Jesus,  in  the  life  of  mutual 
dependence,  and  in  the  spirit  of  love.  One  wiser 
than  Paul  said  that  the  measure  of  greatness  is 
the  measure  of  service  to  others ;  "  whosoever  will 
be  great  among  you,  let  him  be  your  minister,  and 


ARISTOCRACY  AND  DEMOCRACY          107 

whosoever  will  be  chief  among  you,  let  him  be 
your  servant."  That  is  the  true  social  law,  apply- 
ing not  only  to  superior  gifts  and  powers,  but  to 
all  talent,  skill,  knowledge,  and  character;  the 
measure  of  power  the  measure  of  service.  Since 
the  service  must  be  various,  the  gifts  and  powers 
must  be  various. 

When  nature  is  allowed  to  determine  function, 
artificial  arrangements  are  broken  up,  and  the  first  - 
places  are  accorded  to  those  who  are  entitled  to 
them.  The  seat  of  honor  may  be  placed  here  or 
placed  there  ;  but  where  McGregor  is,  there  is  the 
head  of  the  table.  I  was  once  asked  which  is  the 
best  and  most  desirable  chair  in  a  theological  insti- 
tution, and  could  only  answer,  the  chair  which  is 
occupied  by  the  best  man. 

Misplacements  are  not  without  their  consolations 
to  observers.  A  great  office  does  not  make  its 
occupant  great.  A  fool,  thrust  into  prominence 
by  holding  a  high  office,  only  shows  more  conspicu- 
ously how  great  a  fool  he  is.  A  life-size  statue 
surmounting  a  dome  is  dwindled  into  pygmy  in- 
significance. When  the  man  and  the  office  are 
in  inverse  proportion,  the  sober  judgment  of  the 
people  perceives  and  deplores  the  maladjustment. 
Official  promotion  may  fall  to  unworthy  men,  but 
they  do  not  escape  a  just  estimate  of  their  unfit- 
ness.  It  is  pretty  well  known  when  a  man  is  too 


108  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

small  for  his  place.  It  is  not  pleasant,  I  should 
think,  to  perceive  surprise  on  all  sides  when  one 
is  appointed  to  an  important  position  or  receives 
an  honorary  degree.  Surprise  because  one  is  not 
promoted  and  honored  would  be  more  agreeable. 
After  all,  then,  promotion  is  not  real  unless  it  is 
deserved,  and  is  valued  almost  precisely  according 
to  the  worth  and  ability  of  the  man  himself.  A 
popular  ovation  having  been  given  to  an  unpopular 
President,  a  local  newspaper  significantly  observed 
that  the  people  honor  the  office.  Correct  estimate 
of  unfitness  is  a  sure  indication  that  the  people 
wish  to  enthrone  the  aristocracy  of  fitness,  and  that 
in  the  end  they  will  succeed. 

Professor  Paulsen,  tracing  the  educational  ideal 
of  the  future,  says  that  "  the  society  corresponding 
to  the  above  ideal  would  be  that  of  an  aristocracy 
of  mind.  Is  this  the  type  towards  which  we  are 
leaning?  Is  the  aristocracy  of  birth  and  wealth 
to  be  supplanted  by  the  aristocracy  of  personal 
worth  and  merit  ?  This  has  been  the  philosopher's 
dream  from  the  day  of  Plato's  Republic  to  the 
present  hour.  It  is  the  tendency  of  nature.  It 
would  be  the  aristocracy  of  nature  to  have  every 
individual  stand  independently  upon  his  own  per- 
sonal merit,  and  not  upon  the  achievements  of  his 
father;  while  the  influence  of  heredity,  in  the 
sense  of  the  transmission  of  personal  characteris- 


AEISTOCEACY  AND  DEMOCEACY          109 

tics,  would  certainly  not  be  diminished.  Such  is 
the  aristocracy  to  which  historical  development 
seems  to  point.  Both  Church  and  State  have  made 
considerable  advances  toward  the  realization  of  this 
idea  of  a  personal  elite,  by  bestowing  position  and 
influence  according  t©  the  degree  of  personal  tal- 
ent and  efficiency  without  regard  to  birth  and 
possession."  * 

It  follows,  with  many  other  conclusions,  that 
those  who  are  capable  of  great  service  should  not 
shun  it  from  fear  of  criticism  or  of  lack  of  appre- 
ciation, nor  because  high  office  has  been  degraded 
by  unworthy  occupants.  We  may  sympathize  with 
but  cannot  applaud  the  choice  of  Ulysses  to  be  a 
private  citizen,  the  lot  he  would  have  taken  if  he 
had  had  the  first  instead  of  the  last  choice. 

l  The  Forum,  August,  1897. 


XV 

RESENTMENT    OF    SUPERIORITY    AND    INFERIORITY 

KESENTMENT  of  superiority  is  a  characteristic 
I  mark  o£  prevalent  discontent.  It  is  a  discouraging 
symptom  and  a  hindrance  to  progress.  Resent- 
ment of  undeserved  fortune  has  some  justification. 
Over-estimation,  stamped  by  conferring  honors  on 
\fjnen  who  are  conspicuous  only  by  some  happy 
accident,  deserves  criticism.  But  when  resent- 
ment is  excited  by  deserved  wealth  and  by  real 
superiority,  it  actually  prevents  the  full  measure 
of  social  service  which  the  wealthy  and  gifted  can 
render.  A  gentleman  provokes  the  dislike  of  a 
boor  just  because  he  is  a  gentleman.  The  boor 
goes  out  of  his  way  to  be  rude  in  order  to  assert 
his  equality,  and  chuckles  to  himself  as  he  makes 
a  coarse  and  profane  reply  to  a  civil  question.  He 
does  not  know  how  to  handle  the  gentleman,  and 
in  the  end  is  defeated,  only  to  resent  refinement 
all  the  more.  Ignorant  voters  will  not  tolerate 
the  scholar  and  the  gentleman  in  politics.  They 
call  for  an  "  every-day  man  "  who  is  "  one  of  the 
people."  On  the  platform  a  candidate  is  tempted 


RESENTMENT  OF  SUPERIORITY          111 

to  condescend  to  vulgarity  and  profanity  in  order 
to  catch  votes.  Politicians  from  some  sections  of 
the  country  offend  the  social  proprieties  by  appear- 
ing at  evening  receptions  in  other  than  evening 
garments,  for  fear  of  offending  their  constituents 
by  dressing  as  gentlemen.  He  who  confers  bene- 
fits must  be  careful  not  to  assume  a  tone  or  man- 
ner of  superiority.  Benefactors  have  to  be  wary. 
On  their  part  there  may  be  no  pride  in  their  capa- 
bility of  service,  no  feeling  of  patronage  or  conde- 
scension, and  yet  they  cannot  go  directly  towards 
the  fulfillment  of  their  benevolent  designs,  but 
must  proceed  by  indirection,  almost  by  stealth, 
when  they  would  bestow  charity,  convey  informa- 
tion, or  proffer  counsel.  The  benefactor  must  not 
only  keep  his  left  hand  in  ignorance  of  his  right 
hand's  helpfulness  to  guard  against  the  pride  of 
goodness,  but  must  keep  his  helpful  right  hand 
itself  out  of  the  sight  of  the  beneficiary,  lest  it  be 
bitten  by  the  ingratitude  of  resentful  envy.  This 
resentment  of  superiority  is  one  of  the  voices  that 
clamor  for  equality,  but  it  has  no  other  idea  of 
equality  than  leveling  all  superiority  down  to  its 
own  inferiority. 

There  is  also  resentment  of  inferiority  on  the 
part  of  the  superior,  which,  although  not  as  igno- 
ble as  the  other  sort,  may  be  even  more  unfavor- 
able to  the  common  welfare.  The  cry  for  equality 


112  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

is  in  the  mouths  of  some  who,  with  the  best  mo- 
tives (let  us  be  charitable),  desire  to  remove  the 
limitations  of  nature  from  those  who  are  less  amply 
endowed  than  others,  to  carry  on  a  "  reform  against 
nature."  Early  missionaries  to  savage  tribes  were 
stirred  by  resentment  of  the  natural  as  well  as  of 
the  moral  inferiority  of  savages,  and  attempted  to 
convert  them,  not  only  from  cruelty  to  kindness, 
but  also  from  a  rude  social  state  to  the  refinements 
of  European  civilization,  to  equalize  them  with  those 
who  had  had  the  advantage  of  generations  of  edu- 
cation and  culture,  and  were  the  product  of  the 
finest  racial  and  national  stock.  Professor  F. 
Eatzel,  in  his  "  History  of  Mankind,"  referring  to 
a  missionary  in  Terra  del  Fuego  who  was  instructed 
to  teach  the  natives  agriculture,  building,  and  other 
arts  first,  and  who  accomplished  little,  asks  why 
the  results  were  so  meagre,  and  replies :  "  Such  an 
attempt  to  bring  men  over  from  a  poor  but  easy 
state  of  existence  to  one  which,  though  better, 
demands  more  of  them,  can  be  nothing  but  an 
economic  revolution  which  is  not  only  capable  of 
bringing  blessings,  but  also  certain  to  cause  mis- 
chief, and  the  latter  sooner  than  the  former." 

Some  social  reformers  who  cherish  dreams  of 
equality  resent  the  condition  of  those  who  have 
little  but  physical  strength  and  skill  by  which  they 
can  contribute  to  the  supply  of  common  wants. 


RESENTMENT  OF  INFERIORITY  113 

Such  friends,  from  whom  they  might  pray  to  be 
saved,  would  give  them  a  portion  of  goods  which  they 
would  use  harmfully,  an  education  of  which  they  are 
utterly  incapable,  and  refinements  which  they  can 
assume  about  as  easily  as  a  pine  table  can  take 
a  mahogany  polish.  As  well  attempt  to  impose 
upon  savages  the  dress,  manners,  appliances,  cul- 
ture, and  art  of  a  ripe  civilization  as  attempt  by 
division  of  wealth,  or  by  any  economic  redistri- 
bution, to  put  the  refinements,  cultivations,  and 
enjoyments  of  the  well-endowed  into  the  posses- 
sion of  small  endowment  and  attainment.  These 
reformers  impart  their  own  resentment  to  those  for 
whom  it  is  felt  by  pointing  out  the  contrast  between 
employer  and  workman,  between  capital  and  labor, 
between  the  purple  and  fine  linen  of  the  wealthy 
and  the  homespun  and  calico  of  wage-earners, — 
always  the  material  contrast,  so  easily  perceived, 
but  signifying  so  little  for  character,  contentment, 
and  enjoyment. 

If  we  could  get  at  the  workers,  if  we  could  hear 
them  speak  for  themselves,  while  those  who  pro- 
fess to  speak  for  them,  but  are  not  of  them,  keep 
silence  for  a  little  space,  we  might  find  that  resent- 
ment of  superiority  is  not  so  general  as  we  had 
been  led  to  suppose.  There  is  much  of  it,  no 
doubt,  but  it  is,  in  so  large  part,  instigated  from 
without  rather  than  incited  from  within  that  it  is 


114  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

safe  to  deduct  a  large  discount  from  the  estimate 
of  resentment  made  by  professed  reformers.  In 
the  grades  between  the  lowest  and  the  highest 
twentieths  of  the  population  (classified  according 
to  material  possessions),  that  is,  in  the  grades  of 
employment  which  are  above  want  and  below 
riches,  it  is  doubtful  if  there  would  be  much  re- 
sentment of  wealth  and  superiority,  were  it  not 
for  agitators,  themselves  enjoying  competence  and 
leisure,  some  of  them  possessing  wealth,  who 
pursue  the  dilettante  virtue  of  social  reform,  who 
foment  discontent  by  speeches  and  writings  which 
tell  persons  of  moderate  but  sufficient  income  how 
much  better  off  some  other  people  are  than  they 
are ;  were  it  not  also  for  unscrupulous  politicians 
who  hope  to  rally  votes  by  inciting  envy  against 
wealth,  but  who,  between  campaigns,  are  uncon- 
cerned, or  are  rolling  up  for  themselves  the  wealth 
they  have  taught  others  to  covet.  The  minister  of 
a  great  congregation  of  German  working-people  in 
New  York  city,  after  listening  to  an  address  be- 
fore a  clergyman's  association  on  the  discontent 
of  laborers  who,  it  was  alleged,  would  not  long 
endure  existing  inequality,  quietly  remarked  that 
it  was  not  so  with  his  people,  that  they  were  indus- 
trious, comfortable,  and  contented,  and  that  only 
three  or  four  times  in  as  many  years  had  he  heard 
a  word  of  complaint,  or  of  envy  towards  the  pro- 


RESENTMENT  OF  INFEEIOEITY  115 

sperous.  The  case  may  be  exceptional,  but  seems 
to  be  typical.  This  does  not  mean  that  working- 
people  are  without  ambition  and  have  no  desire  to 
better  their  circumstances,  but  it  does  signify  that 
they  are  not  continually  brooding  over  the  con- 
trast of  wealth  and  wages ;  that  for  the  most  part 
they  go  their  ways  contentedly,  enjoying  what 
they  have,  and  cultivating  the  common  virtues. 
Some  reformers  are,  in  fact,  discouraged  because 
many  of  the  people  actually  do  not  have  and  will 
not  be  induced  to  have  a  proper  resentment  in 
view  of  the  superior  advantages  of  the  prosperous 
who  live  at  the  other  end  of  the  avenue.  But, 
whatever  degree  of  resentment  there  may  be  and 
however  it  may  be  incited,  it  is  beyond  question 
that  the  resentment  which  would  merely  deprive 
others  of  what  they  have  and  would  reduce  supe- 
riority to  a  lower  level  is  harmful  chiefly  to  those 
who  cherish  it,  and  serves  only  to  hinder  such  im- 
provement as  is  possible. 


XVI 

TWO   KINDS   OF  DISCONTENT 

THERE  are  two  kinds  of  discontent ;  a  kind  to 
be  condemned  and  a  kind  to  be  encouraged :  an 
ignoble  and  a  noble  discontent.  The  first  has  in 
view  the  material  possessions  and  the  superior  en- 
dowments of  others ;  the  second  has  in  view  one's 
own  possession,  achievement,  and  character.  The 
first  is  the  discontent  of  envy ;  the  other  is  the  dis- 
content of  ambition. 

The  envy  that  is  most  common  and  most  com- 
monly appealed  to  is  the  envy  excited  by  material 
values  in  the  possession  of  others.  It  covets  a 
neighbor's  house,  ox,  and  ass,  and  the  means 
whereby  he  can  afford  to  have  a  manservant  and 
a  maidservant.  Envy  of  superior  talents  and  of 
the  eminence  they  give  in  literary,  academic,  and 
political  circles  is  felt  only  by  persons  within  those 
circles,  by  persons  who  are  engaged  in  the  pur- 
suits in  which  a  few  have  made  a  name  for  them- 
selves. Those  circles  are  small,  and,  within  them, 
the  majority  are  stimulated  rather  than  embittered 
by  the  success  of  their  superiors.  For  one  unsuc- 


TWO  KINDS  OF  DISCONTENT  117 

cessful  or  moderately  successful  author  who  is 
soured  and  who  believes  that  the  popularity  of 
others  is  undeserved,  there  are  a  hundred  authors 
who  are  genuine  admirers  and  fair  critics.  But 
the  masses  do  not  so  much  as  know  the  names  of 
distinguished  authors,  scholars,  scientists,  and  phi- 
losophers. Envy  is  most  commonly  excited  by 
display  of  wealth.  The  envious  imagine  that  the 
chief  good  consists  in  material  values,  that  riches 
procure  complete  enjoyment,  that  money  is  the 
measure  and  the  master  of  all  things,  that  a  good 
share  of  wealth  is  all  that  is  necessary  for  attain- 
ing the  objects  of  life.  The  discontent  of  am- 
bition, on  the  other  hand,  desires  the  attainment, 
culture,  and  character  which  are  dependent  on 
one's  own  exertions. 

The  discontent  of  contrast  deepens  into  bitter- 
ness as  it  sees  that  the  envied  wealth  is  out  of 
reach.  It  despises  that  amount  of  wealth  which  is 
attainable  by  industry  and  thrift.  It  waits  for  a 
redistribution  through  which  the  poor  will  become 
richer  by  making  the  rich  poorer.  Those  who 
nourish  this  discontent  in  others  by  emphasizing 
contrasts  without  appealing  to  personal  ambition 
aggravate  envy  into  hostility  which  only  hinders 
more  equitable  adjustment.  It  is  not  from  such 
discontent  that  progress  comes.  Unless  other  sen- 
timents are  fostered,  the  distance  between  extremes 


118  INEQUALITY  AND  PKOGBESS 

will  be  widened.  Should  the  discontent  of  contrast 
become  violence,  the  economic  structure  might, 
indeed,  be  overthrown,  but  only  to  involve  all  in 
ruin.  Labor  would  be  a  blind  Samson  crushed 
itself  in  pulling  down  the  house  of  the  Philistines. 

The  discontent  of  ambition  sees  the  better  self, 
the  better  mechanic,  better  farmer,  better  hus- 
band and  father,  in  existing  conditions,  sees  that 
improved  men  make  improved  conditions,  and  sees 
that  extremes  can  be  reduced,  not  by  pulling  down 
the  superior,  but  by  raising  the  inferior  in  the 
measure  of  their  capacity.  Those  who  have  a 
small  share,  perhaps  too  small  a  share  of  material 
goods,  will  get  more,  not  by  redivision  of  what 
there  is,  but  by  increased  productiveness  of  skill. 
After  a  redistribution  which  gives  equal  shares  to 
all,  ignorance  and  laziness  would  soon  be  as  de- 
stitute as  ever.  /Even  if  wealth  were  parceled  out 
equitably,  it  would  not  produce  men  of  intelligence 
and  character,  or,  at  the  most,  would  be  only  one 
factor  among  others  for  the  improvement  of  men. 
For  the  making  of  character,  the  gaining  of  know- 
ledge, and  the  right  use  of  wealth,  personal  ambi- 
tion and  effort  are  necessary.  * 

True  ownership  of  wealth  cannot  be  gained 
simply  by  taking  it  away  from  those  who  possess 
it.  Material  values,  in  that  respect,  are  like  men- 
tal and  moral  values.  Intelligence  cannot  be 


TWO  KINDS  OF  DISCONTENT  119 

gained  by  depriving  the  wise  of  part  of  their 
knowledge ;  nor  refinement  by  robbing  the  culti- 
vated of  their  culture ;  nor  virtue  by  taking  away 
the  character  of  the  good.  Those  values  can  be 
gained  only  by  one's  own  ambition  and  toil.  The 
gain  of  one  is  not  the  loss  of  another,  but  the  gain 
of  each  is,  or  may  be,  the  gain  of  many ;  as  with  \ 


religion,  of  which  it  has  been  said  that  the  more  * 
we  give  away  the  more  we  have.     Material  goods    • 
change  hands  more  easily  than  mental  and  moral    t 
goods  are  transferred,  at  least  so  far  as  legal  title    ' 
is  concerned,  but  are  not  really  possessed  except    i 
as  they  are  rightly  used.     Ownership  is  use.     A    r 
man  that  is  unfitted  by  ignorance,  vanity,  or  selfish-    i 
ness  for  the  right  use  of  wealth-  has  no  ownership    , 
in  the   goods   that  stand  in  his  name.     He  may  / 
buy  books  enough  to  fill  five  hundred  square  feet  t 
of  library  shelves,  but  if  he  cannot  read  and  ap-  / 
preciate  them   they  are    not   his.     Legal  posses-  ( 
sion  is  not  personal  ownership.     Money  buys  but    t 
a  small  part  of   intellectual   and   aesthetic   value.     ' 
Unless  personal  ambition  incites  to  attainment  and 
culture,  wealth  is   no  addition  to  resources.     An 
intelligent  workman  reading  a  scientific  treatise  or 
a  volume  of  history  which  he  takes  out  of  a  public 
library  becomes  possessor  of  the  value  of  the  book, 
although  it  does  not  belong  to  him.     A  rich  man 
who  has  no  taste  for  reading  does  not  possess  his 


120  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

private  library,  although  he  has  paid  for  the  costly 

editions   and   has   placed  his  name  and  imported 
gk  ^Ji'      ^  r 

crest  in  every  volume  .j  An  inquisitive  boy  asked 
a  driver  as  the  horses  toiled  up  the  mountain  road, 
"  Who  owns  Mount  Washington  ?  "  The  driver  re- 
plied that  it  is  owned  by  the  Pingree  heirs.  But 
the  mountain  really  belongs  to  those  who  admire 
its  beauty  and  grandeur.  Legal  ownership  has  the 
value  only  of  so  much  timber. 

Envy,  seeing  external  possessions  and  coveting 
them,  is  a  foolish  discontent  which  could  make 
only  a  meagre,  selfish  use  of  the  wealth  it  would 
grasp,  and  would  add  nothing  to  the  sum  total. 
Ambition,  using  aright  the  goods  already  in  hand, 
increasing  them  by  skill  and  industry,  and  aspir- 
ing after  knowledge,  culture,  and  character,  makes 
better  men,  who  are  fitted  to  use  as  much  wealth 
as  they  may  obtain. 

The  same  possessions,  enjoyments,  and  culture 
are  not  possible  to  all,  because  God  has  made 
men  unlike.  But  a  degree  of  improvement  is  pos- 
sible to  every  one.  Let  each  seek  that  and  not 
grasp  at  the  moon.  The  important  thing  is  that 
each  know  what  he  can  do  and  what  he  can  be, 
and  strive  for  that  with  all  his  might.  Let  the 
rear  come  up,  by  all  means,  so  that,  if  possible,  it 
may  stand  where  the  van  is  to-day.  But  let  no  one 
suppose  that  the  van  will  wait  until  all  are  ranged 


TWO  KINDS  OF  DISCONTENT  121 

along  one  line.  The  leaders  will  be  as  far  in  ad- 
vance as  ever.  The  rear  moves  up  only  because 
those  in  advance  keep  moving  forward  and  in 
their  movement  lead  or  draw  on  those  who  are 
behind. 

I  am  not  preaching  a  gospel  of  satisfaction  with 
economic  conditions.  Changes  and  improvements 
are  needed  and  will  probably  occur.  If  legislation 
in  the  United  States  favors  wealth  and  monopoly 
at  the  expense  of  toilers,  it  can  be  and  should 
be  reversed  by  the  people.  Yet,  were  economic' 
conditions  perfect,  there  would  be  no  gospel  of  sal-1 
vation,  apart  from  the  ambition  and  striving  of  the ' 
individual  to  become  his  best  possible  self  in  the  : 
use  of  that  which  he  has.  Nor  are  economic  con- 
ditions so  bad  that  right  ambition  need  fail  of 
realizing  itself  in  those  increments  of  intelligence 
and  growths  of  character  of  which  by  endowment 
the  individual  is  capable.  There  are,  at  any  rate, 
voices  enough  crying  in  the  wilderness  to  deepen 
the  discontent  of  contrast.  There  cannot  be  too 
many  voices  calling  individuals  to  turn  from  their 
^ignorance  and  shiftlessness  and  to  bring  forth 
fruits  worthy  of  repentance.  To  most  men  that 
are  stirred  by  the  ambition  of  discontent  and  are 
asking,  What  shall  we  do  ?  the  cry  of  the  ancient 
voice  is  still  a  good  answer:  to  publicans,  repre- 
senting the  wealthy,  "  Extort  no  more  than  that 


122  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGBESS 

which  is  appointed  you;  "  to  soldiers,  representing 
the  employed,  "  Extort  from  no  man  by  violence, 
neither  accuse  any  one  wrongfully,  and  be  content 
with  your  wages ; "  and  to  all  classes,  "  Bring  forth 
fruits  worthy  of  repentance." 

NOTE.  —  The  statement  on  page  114=  that  the  majority  of 
workingmen  are  not  envious  of  the  wealthy  may  perhaps  be 
questioned  in  view  of  the  large  number  who  are  members  of 
Trade  Unions.  But  their  object  is  simply  to  obtain  fair 
wages,  to  receive  the  share  to  which  they  are  fairly  entitled. 
They  understand  perfectly  that  large  capital  in  the  hands  of 
a  few  is  the  necessary  condition  of  good  wages. 


XVII 

ADMIRATION  AND   INSPIRATION 

IN  contrast  with  resentment  of  superiority  is  ad- 
miration. Admiration  creates  inspiration,  arouses 
ambition,  and  promotes  progress.  Egotism  and 
self-satisfaction  make  advancement  impossible.  The 
Master,  as  the  pupils  and  friends  of  the  late  Pro- 
fessor Jowett  of  Oxford  loved  to  call  him,  remark- 
ing that  one  of  the  two  great  forms  of  religion  is 
the  sense  and  practice  of  the  presence  of  God, 
says :  "  The  best  of  humanity  is  the  most  perfect 
reflection  of  God  :  humanity  as  it  might  be,  not  as 
it  is ;  and  the  way  up  to  Him  is  to  be  found  in  the 
lives  of  the  best  and  greatest  men ;  of  saints  and 
legislators  and  philosophers,  the  founders  of  states 
and  the  founders  of  religions,  —  allowing  for  and 
seeking  to  correct  their  necessary  one-sidedness. 
These  heroes,  or  demigods,  or  benefactors,  as  they 
would  have  been  called  by  the  ancients,  are  the 
mediators  between  God  and  man.  Whither  they 
went  we  also  are  going,  and  may  be  content  to 
follow  in  their  footsteps."  This  admiration,  he 
adds,  is  prevented  by  overweening  egotism.  "  We 


124  INEQUALITY  AND  PBOGRESS 

are  always  thinking  of  ourselves,  hardly  ever  of 
God,  or  of  great  and  good  men  who  are  His  im- 
age. This  egotism  requires  to  be  abated  before  we 
can  have  any  real  idea  of  His  true  nature.  The 
'  I '  is  our  God  —  What  we  shall  eat  ?  What  we 
shall  drink?  What  we  shall  do?  How  we  shall 
have  a  flattering  consciousness  of  our  own  im- 
portance ?  "  * 

Without  great  men  how  commonplace,  and,  it 
may  well  be  believed,  how  unprogressive  the  world 
N  would  be.  Progress  is  possible  for  the  individual 
who  admires  a  superior.  It  may  not  be  possible 
by  other  agencies,  in  the  absence  of  a  genuine  ad- 
miration which  inspires  ambition.  A  college  pre- 
sident, who,  like  the  Master  of  Balliol,  awakens 
enthusiasm  for  the  highest  standards,  which  he 
himself  embodies,  gives  tone  and  uplift  to  the 
whole  community  of  aspiring  youth  whom  he  gov- 
erns and  guides  into  self-guidance  and  self-govern- 
ment. The  Governor  of  a  State,  who  is  a  cultivated, 
capable,  honest,  and  courageous  gentleman,  is  the 
pride  of  the  Commonwealth.  He  awakens  an  ad- 
miration and  enthusiasm  which  raise  the  standard 
of  citizenship  and  of  official  position,  and  which 
show  that  in  their  hearts  the  people  prefer  the 
refinement  and  greatness  of  one  of  nature's  no- 
blemen to  the  coarseness  and  meanness  of  the 

1  Life  and  Letters  of  Benjamin  Jowett,  vol.  ii.  p.  313. 


ADMIRATION  AND  INSPIRATION 


politician  who  seeks  to  gain  popularity  by  cheap 
arts. 

Admiration  of  others  is  itself  admirable.  Some 
nobleness  of  spirit  is  needed  to  recognize  noble- 
ness. The  saying  that  a  man  is  not  a  hero  to  his 
valet  has  been  wittily  justified  by  the  explanation 
that  it  is  not  because  the  hero  is  not  a  hero,  but 
because  the  valet  is  a  valet.  Yet  servants  know 
the  difference  between  noble  and  ignoble  masters, 
and  are  said  to  be  good  judges  of  character.  This 
may  very  well  be  true,  for  the  reason  that  he  who 
controls  another  reveals  his  character  in  the  re- 
quirements he  makes.  The  devotion  and  respect 
of  servants  are  precious  tributes  paid  to  worth; 
and  they  also  exalt  those  who  are  capable  of  such 
admiration  and  loyalty.  Appreciation,  which  enno- 
bles those  who  generously  feel  it,  is  found  at  all 
points  up  and  down  the  social  and  intellectual 
scale.  Darwin,  so  it  is  said,  after  receiving  a  visit 
from  Gladstone,  who  was  passing  through  Down, 
spoke  of  the  visit  afterwards,  and  declared  that  the 
great  statesman  sat  and  talked  as  familiarly  as  a 
neighbor,  and  that  no  one  would  have  dreamed  that 
he  was  Prime  Minister  of  the  kingdom.  Appre- 
ciation of  the  greatness  of  the  statesman  made  the 
scientist  forget  his  own  greatness.  There  is  a  fine 
touch  in  Stevenson's  description  of  the  old  Scotch- 
man on  an  emigrant  ship  who  was  filled  with 


126  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

admiration  of  the  indifferent  performances  of  a 
youth  on  the  fiddle,  and  who  repeatedly  called  on 
the  bystanders  to  share  his  enthusiasm. 

The  secret  of  modesty  and  of  egotism  is  partly 
open  in  view  of  admiration  and  the  absence  of 
admiration.  It  is  frequently  observed  that  the 
best  and  ablest  men  are  the  most  modest,  and  that 
very  ordinary  men  are  the  most  egotistical;  that 
modesty  and  conceit  are  in  inverse  proportion  to 
ability.  But  it  is  not  as  paradoxical  as  it  seems. 
The  modest  man  compares  himself  with  those  who 
are  his  superiors  in  attainments  and  achievements ; 
the  self-absorbed  egotist  compares  himself  with  his 
inferiors,  or  with  nobody  at  all.  One  compares 
himself  upwards ;  the  other  compares  himself  down- 
wards. One  appreciates  the  talents  and  acquisi- 
tions of  those  who  stand  first,  and  is  modest ;  the 
other  compares  himself  (if  he  ever  looks  out  from 
the  closed  circuit  of  his  own  thoughts  and  pursuits) 
with  those  who  are,  or  who  he  fancies  are,  inferior 
to  him,  and  is  inflated  with  self-conceit.  The  Phar- 
isee, who  thanked  God  that  he  was  not  as  other 
men  are,  compared  himself,  not  with  the  best  men 
of  his  time,  not  with  Joseph  of  Arimathea  the  just 
counselor,  nor  with  Mcodemus  the  honest  seeker 
after  truth,  nor  with  John  Baptist  whose  call  to 
repentance  the  Pharisee  must  have  heard,  but  with 
those  who  were  worst  or  supposed  to  be  worst,  — 


ADMIRATION  AND  INSPIRATION          127 

extortioners,  adulterers,  unjust,  or  yonder  publican 
who  presumes  to  come  into  the  temple  to  pray.  He 
did  not  lie,  he  did  not  cheat,  he  did  not  company 
with  bad  women,  and  he  was  not  a  publican.  He 
compared  himself  downwards  and  was  completely 
satisfied.  The  publican,  who  did  not  so  much  as 
lift  his  eyes  towards  heaven  as  he  cried  for  mercy, 
had  a  vision  of  honesty  and  of  purity,  disclosed  to 
him,  no  doubt,  by  some  pure  and  honest  soul.  He 
measured  himself  upwards  and  was  penitent.  This 
is  a  parable,  not  only  for  religious  standards,  but 
also  for  intellectual  and  moral  character.  Egotism 
is  wrapped  up  in  its  own  insignificant  self  and 
despises  others ;  modesty  can  admire  superiority. 

Modesty  inspired  with  admiration  sees  and  fol- 
lows the  line  of  improvement ;  egotism  inflated 
with  pride,  self-sufficiency,  and  contempt,  neither 
conceives  nor  desires  improvement,  but  dwindles 
into  yet  smaller  insignificance.  "  Seest  thou  a  man 
wise  in  his  own  conceit?  there  is  more  hope  of  a 
fool  than  of  him."  The  saying  is  true  to  fact ; 
*'  every  one  that  exalteth  himself  shall  be  abased, 
and  he  that  humbleth  himself  shall  be  exalted." 
The  ideals  which  humble  also  inspire  and  exalt. 
To  have  no  ideals  is  to  be  abased,  both  in  the 
estimation  of  others  and  in  constant  deterioration. 

There  is  a  wide  difference  between  inspiration    -^ 
and  imitation.    Inspiration  touches  character  —  the 


128  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

inner  self.  Imitation  touches  externals  —  the  out- 
ward man.  When  Phillips  Brooks  was  alive,  scores 
of  young  Episcopal  clergymen  tried  to  preach  as 
he  did.  He  had  a  habit  of  speaking  rapidly  (the 
quick  utterance  being  due  to  a  tendency  to  stam- 
mer), and  of  expanding  his  chest  and  spreading  his 
hands  upon  it.  So  these  young  clergymen  spoke 
rapidly  and  expanded  their  chests  and  spread  out 
their  hands.  They  were  putting  on  the  garments 
of  the  great  preacher,  imitating  externals;  but 
the  garments  were  too  large,  and  hung  very  loosely 
on  the  smaller  men.  To  many  preachers,  however, 
Bishop  Brooks  was  an  inspiration.  Reality,  genu- 
ineness, freshness,  sympathy,  became  the  type  of 
preaching  in  hundreds  of  pulpits.  It  may  almost 
be  said  that  he  changed  the  character  of  the  Ameri- 
can pulpit. 

Admiration  need  not  be  servility.  Servile  ad- 
ulation places  the  great  on  an  unapproachable 
pinnacle,  and  obliterates  self.  It  widens  distance. 
True  admiration  inspires  one  to  make  similar  at- 
tainments, to  do  kindred  deeds,  to  have  the  same 
character.  Democracy,  on  the  whole,  discourages 
servility  and  promotes  genuine  admiration.  When 
rank  and  class  are  impassable,  besides  those  who 
resent  such  artificial  superiority  are  many  who 
become  servile  and  obsequious.  When  distinc- 
tions of  rank  and  class  do  not  exist,  when  char- 


ADMIRATION  AND  INSPIRATION          129 

acter,  culture,  and  achievement  give  superiority, 
when  no  gulf  is  fixed  by  externals,  there  is  more 
of  genuine  admiration,  more  inspiration  of  ex- 
ample, less  servility,  and  less  resentment.  It  is 
thought  that,  in  this  country,  wealth  provokes  ha- 
tred in  some  and  servility  in  others,  as  hereditary 
rank  does  in  other  countries.  There  has  been,  and 
is,  a  sickening  servility  towards  the  rich.  Many 
are  eager  to  be  introduced  and  to  be  on  bowing 
(scarcely  speaking)  terms  with  the  rich,  although 
no  possible  advantage  is  to  be  derived  from  the 
acquaintance.  But  there  seems  to  be  some  abate- 
ment  of  eager  running  after  the  wealthy.  Enor- 
mous  fortunes  are  looked  upon  with  suspicion. 
We  wonder  how  they  were  come  by.  For  only  a 
short  time  have  we  boasted  that  there  are  more 
millionaires  in  America  than  elsewhere.  We  now 
wish  they  were  fewer.  Mr.  Howells  remarks  that 
it  is  not  only  the  old-fashioned  American  who  looks 
on  wealth  with  misgiving,  "  it  is  the  newest-fash- 
ioned American,  the  best  educated,  the  most  finely 
equipped,  the  young  man  choosing  deliberately  a 
high  calling  in  which  he  cannot  hope  to  make  a 
fortune  —  it  is  he  who  regards  the  vast  accumula- 
tions of  money,  once  our  admiration,  with  genuine 
contentment  in  his  higher  aim."1  In  another 
magazine,  one  writer  says  of  the  President  of  Co- 

1  "  The  Modern  American  Mood,"  Harper's  Magazine,  July,  1897. 


130  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

lumbia  University,  whom  many  desire  to  see  Mayor 
of  Greater  New  York,  that,  although  he  is  wealthy, 
he  is  never  spoken  of  as  a  rich  man,  that  the  fact 
of  his  wealth  "  is  obscured  by  the  character,  the 
spirit,  the  aim  of  the  man,  in  truth  by  the  man 
himself.  In  a  time  when  great  wealth  excites  so 
much  comment,  when  the  ignorant  envy  its  owners, 
and  some  of  the  educated  are  devising  schemes  to 
check  its  accumulation  and  even  to  divide  it,  it 
is  no  small  service  to  the  public  that  one  example 
should  be  set  of  wealth  utterly  forgotten  in  the  per- 
sonality of  its  possessor."  1  Now  one  false  form 
of  success  and  now  another  may  be  overvalued  in 
popular  estimation,  yet  in  a  democracy  standards 
of  intelligence  and  character  have  the  best  chance 
of  winning  admiration  and  creating  inspiration. 
Such  standards,  embodied  in  superior  persons, — 
in  scholars,  teachers,  statesmen,  artists,  capitalists, 
and  benefactors,  —  are  the  indispensable  conditions 
of  progress. 

There  is  no  danger  that  the  supply  of  great 
men  will  give  out,  at  any  rate  from  lack  of  favor- 
able circumstances.  As  against  the  prediction 
that  there  are  not  likely  to  be  any  more  great  men, 
because  science  can  publish  no  discoveries  com- 
parable to  those  already  made,  because  all  the  epic 
and  dramatic  situations  have  been  exhausted,  and 

1  Edward  Cary,  in  Review  of  Reviews,  July,  1897. 


ADMIRATION  AND  INSPIRATION          131 

because  the  most  momentous  political  changes  are 
already  accomplished,  I  have  observed  in  an  earlier 
work l  that  "  it  is  rather  rash  to  predict  that  there 
are  to  be  no  more  distinguished  statesmen  while 
Bismarck  and  Gladstone  are  still  living  and  are 
more  widely  famous  than  Pitt,  or  Burke,  or  Machi- 
avelli  were  in  their  day ;  to  affirm  that  there  will 
be  no  more  eminent  scientific  discoverers,  consider- 
ing that  Darwin  was  unknown  forty  years  ago ;  to 
prophesy  that  there  will  be  no  more  great  poets  when 
it  is  remembered  that  the  entire  life  of  Tennyson 
and  Browning  was  included  in  the  present  century. 
It  might  with  equal  force  be  argued  that  social  dis- 
content and  democratic  government  furnish  unpre- 
cedented conditions  for  leadership  and  fame  ;  that 
national  relations  are  so  sensitive  and  the  balance 
of  power  so  delicate  that,  in  use  of  the  modern 
enginery  of  war,  a  soldier  may  yet  appear  more 
famous  than  any  military  genius  of  the  past;  that 
not  all  mysteries  of  nature  are  explored ;  that  life 
does  not  cease  to  be  dramatic  because  it  is  com- 
fortable, but  with  refinement  and  culture  becomes 
more  sensitive,  and  so  will  give  the  poet  ample 
material."  Biologists  believe  that  discoveries  more 
important  than  any  yet  made  await  investigation 
of  the  germ-cell.  It  has  been  said  that  the  next 
great  philosophers  and  theologians  must  be  accom- 

1  Moral  Evolution,  p.  47. 


132  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

plished  biologists.  An  entirely  new  school  of 
poetry,  making  large  use  of  the  mechanism  of  rail- 
roads, deep-sea  cables  and  ships,  of  cities,  of  com- 
merce, and  of  modern  labor  has  been  founded  in 
this  decade  by  Kipling.  National  and  interna- 
tional politics  are  on  so  large  a  scale  that  name 
and  fame  may  be  enhanced  beyond  any  greatness  of 
the  past.  Great  movements  require  great  leader- 
ship. General  improvement  and  the  diffusion  of 
culture  have  not  yet  taken  the  place  of  great  men 
who  marshal  and  master  the  multitude.  What 
would  become  of  us  if  all  were  equally  good  and 
great,  and  we  knew  no  superiors  who  inspire  to 
noble  deeds  and  feelings?  What  would  become 
of  us  if  all  were  equally  small,  sordid,  and  igno- 
rant? 


XVIII 

THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS 

IN  a  previous  section  attention  was  directed  to 
the  fact  that  progress  is  made  by  th 


of   new  wants,  that  the  satisfaction  of  one  want 
creates  a  fresh  want  which  had  been  unforeseen 
Now,  new  wants  which  one  endeavors  to  realize 
are  ideals.^  A  want  bondexeriftTi^ft  is  «™  idp^T. 


Every  one,  in  this  sense,  has  ideals  of  some  kind, 
material,  intellectual,  aesthetic,  social,  moral,  re- 
ligious, or  a  composite  including  some  or  all  of 
those  wants.  There  is  one  common  characteristic 
of  all  those  who  pursue  ideals  and  thereby  make 
advancement.  All  do  not  have  the  same  wants  or 
ideals.  Some  are  not  capable  of  comprehending 
the  ideals  of  others.  A  child  does  not  understand 
his  father's  aims,  thinks  it  a  pity  his  father  should 
waste  time  over  dull  books  when  he  might  be  at 
play.  A  scholar's  purposes  are  almost  incompre- 
hensible to  an  athlete.  Who  would  be  a  dig  when 
he  might  be  a  quarter-back  ?  Social  ambition  is 
meaningless  to  an  artist.  The  common  character- 
istic is  the  progression  of  ideals.  The  satisfaction 


134  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

of  one  want  creates  another  want,  so  that  the  ideal 
is  always  in  advance.  Unless  one  rests  in  a  stag- 
nant state,  he  is  led  on  by  some  higher  ideal,  of 
the  same  sort,  or  of  an  entirely  new  sort. 

V,  !>  The  mfitbpd._of_  progression  is  also  the  same  for 
all,  whatever  the  ideal  may  be.  The  old  ideal  is 
not  relinquished  unless  it  is  believed  to  be  false 
and  mistaken.  The  old  ideal  becomes  customary, 
and  upon  it  desire  and  effort  reach  out  for  the  new 
and  higher  ideal.  That  which  had  been  eagerly 
desired  is  so  welded  or  woven  into  experience  that 
it  becomes  familiar,  customary,  and  almost  auto- 
matic. This  familiarizing  of  ^satisfied  wants  is 
worthy  of  careful  notice. 

x-*v  Every  one  has  had  experience  of  novelties  be- 
f  fjL^oming  commonplace.  The  rrmgt  agfwmskiTig  thing, 
is  the  rapidity  with  which  astonishing  things  be- 
come matter-of-course  arrangements.  Not  long 
agcTtte  beholder  was  amazed~~at  the  power  of  an 
electric  wire  to  push  heavily  loaded  cars  through 
the  streets.  To-day  he  reads  his  newspaper  as  he 
is  whirled  along,  and  on  every  trip  makes  com- 
plaint of  slowness  and  delay.  The  appliances  of 
wealth,  which  are  eagerly  coveted  by  those  who  do 
not  have  them,  are  every-day  conveniences  to  their 
possessors  who  give  them  scarcely  a  thought.  In- 
terest is  transferred  from  the  habitual  to  the  un- 
accustomed. A  carriage  is  simply  a  convenience, 


THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS  135 

only  an  appliance  to  take  its  occupant  to  some 
place  where  he  will  do  or  enjoy  something,  simply 
a  means  to  some  other  end.  For  pleasure  he  pre- 
fers a  bicycle  or  his  feet,  and  leaves  his  horses  to 
eat  off  their  heads  in  the  stable.  As  tjie  merchant 
drives  through  the  park  in  aa  equipage  perfectly 
appointed,  the  envy  of  pedestrians,  he  may  be  ab- 
sorbed with  the  anxieties  of  business,  or  disturbed 
with  thoughts  of  his  dissipated  and  disappointing 
son,  or  planning  a  trip  to  Europe  to  be  rid  of  the 
monotonous  routine  of  his  office,  his  daily  drive, 
and  his  ten-course  dinner,  or  impatient  to  reach 
home  and  take  up  the  unfinished  novel  or  to  spend 
the  evening  at  his  club.  His  conveniences  and 
luxuries  actually  become  an  encumbrance.  His 
establishment  brings  more  care  than  enjoyment. 
He  thinks  he  envies  the  laborer  who  trudges  home- 
ward, puffing  his  pipe  and  swinging  his  empty 
dinner-pail.  He  perceives  that  contentment,  like 
worth,  is  as  likely  to  go  on  foot  as  in  a  high  dog- 
cart. His  wife,  poor  thing,  is  at  Aix-les-Bains,  try- 
ing to  recuperate  from  nervous  prostration,  brought 
on  by  entertaining,  visiting,  and  the  management 
of  twenty  servants. 

The jgassage  from  old  to  new  satisfactions  may 
be  called  the  extension  of  automatic  action.  A 
child  learning  to  walk  makes  conscious  effort  with 
every  uncertain  step,  and  is  delighted  with  his  new 


136  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

accomplishment ;  but  soon  walking  requires  no 
conscious  volition,  is  automatic,  and  when  walk- 
ing and  running  the  child's  mind  is  intent  on 
flowers  to  be  picked  and  games  to  be  played. 
With  painstaking  effort  the  child  learns  to  read. 
Every  word  is  spelled  out.  But  soon  he  is  not 
aware  of  words  and  letters,  but  only  of  the  thought 
expressed.  Attention  is  not  wanting,  for  a  mis- 
spelt word  and  a  misplaced  letter  is  noticed.  But 
the  mind  is  liberated  from  the  act  of  reading  and 
concentrated  on  the  object  of  reading.  Playing 
the  piano  becomes  automatic.  The  performer  is 
not  conscious  of  separate  volitions  as  his  fingers 
strike  the  keys.  Attention  is  discharged  from  the 
mechanical  act  to  the  rhythm,  harmony,  and  in- 
terpretation of  the  composition  he  renders.  The 
exercise  of  nearly  all  physical  and  of  many  intel- 
lectual volitions  which  at  first  is  conscious  becomes 
automatic.  Even  moral  actions  may  be  so  habit- 
ual as  to  become  unconscious.  The  effect  of  this 
is  not  the  restriction  of  voluntary  by  the  extension 
of  automatic  action,  but  the  liberation  of  volitional 
energy  in  new  and  higher  directions.  A  man  does 
not  become  a  machine  by  changing  the  unaccus- 
tomed into  the  habitual.  He  only  transfers  choice 
and  energy  from  a  narrow  to  a  wider  circle.  Even 
automatic  is  not  necessitated  action,  for  one  can 
walk,  read,  add  columns  of  figures,  play  a  musical 


THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS  137 

instrument,  or  not,  as  he  chooses.  To  be  sure,  one 
can  become  an  automaton.  One  can  circle  about 
in  the  narrow  range  of  a  few  habits  without  seek- 
ing new  experiences  or  making  fresh  attainments. 
To  some  it  is  painful  to  move  out  of  the  grooves 
of  habitual  action.  They  are  the  unmitigated  con- 
servatives, who  get  their  growth  early,  and  who 

^(ould  make  an  end  of  progress. 

Jj/The  extension  of  automatic  action,  instead  of  be- 
ing a^Limitation,  is  the  very  condition  of  progress. 
The  mor^TaSguages  o"ne  ^ean  read  automatically, 
the  more  new  knowledge  one  can  acquire.  The 
more  automatic  musical  mechanics,  the  better  ap- 
preciation of  music,  old  and  new.  Were  there  no 
automatic  action,  humanity  would  be  forever  in 
leading  strings  and  the  alphabet,  always  beginning 
everything  anew  and  making  no  progress.  An  an- 
cient writer  said  that  we  are  to  leave  first  princi- 
ples and  go  on  unto  perfection.  He  did  not  mean 
that  first  principles  should  be  abandoned.  He 
meant  that  first  principles  should  be  taken  for 
granted,  a  second  nature,  and  on  that  basis  there 
should  be  advancement  to  new  knowledge  and  finer 
character.  Precisely  so  a  boy  should  leave  arith- 
metic and  go  on  to  geometry;  arithmetic  is  not 
abandoned,  but  automatic  facility  in  numbers  con- 
ditions progress  in  the  higher  mathematics.  This, 
now,  is  true  of  the  economic,  aesthetic,  and  moral 


138-  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

i 
life.     There  is  a  progression  of  desires  and  ideals, 

and  dijjergnt  persons  areatjifferent  stages.  The 
step  towards  which  this  one  is  climbing,  that  one 
stands  upon  or  has  left  beneath.  The  coveted  lux- 
uries of  some  are  the  accustomed  conveniences  of 
others.  If  income  were  doubled,  one  thinks  one 
could  be  content.  But  wants  will  double.  The 
first  half  will  only  give  place  and  room  for  the 
satisfaction  of  other  wants.  The  laborer  wants  a 
better  house.  The  rich  man  has  the  house  but 
wants  to  fill  it  with  pictures  and  books.  The  height 
of  an  instructor's  ambition  is  to  be  a  professor,  but 
the  professor  wants  to  write  books,  to  be  made 
a  member  of  the  academy  of  science,  to  receive 
an  honorary  degree.  People  might  be  grouped 
roughly  according  to  their  ideals ;  some  desiring 
what  others  already  have,  others  aspiring  to  condi- 
tions which  none  have  attained ;  some  embracing 
an  ideal  realized  in  material  goods,  others  aiming 
at  literary,  aesthetic,  philosophic,  religious  values ; 
and  all,  as  they  reach  one  vantage  ground,  stirred 
by  desires  for  more  of  what  they  have,  or  for  that 
which  is  different  and  bettdJj^There  is  progression 
of  ideals  for  each  improving  person,  and  there  is 
an  ascending  scale  of  ideals  for  society.  The  scale 
of  ideals  is  determined  partly  by  circumstance,  but 
chiefly  by  personality.  The  highest  ideals  may 
stir  one  who  is  in  the  lowest  station.  The  lowest 


THE  PEOGEESSION  OF  IDEALS  139 

ideals  may  appeal  to  one  who  is  in  the  highest  sta- 
tion. There  are  intelligent  and  refined  working- 
men  and  there  are  ignorant  and  coarse  millionaires. 
Not,  so  many  ideals  corresponding  to  so  many 
classes,  but  in  every  class,  many  men,  many  minds ; 
and  with  all,  progression  from  one  ideal  to  an- 
other. 

Contentment,  therefore,  is  but  slightly  depend-  " 
ent  on  circumstances.      Every  one  has  observed 
this.     In  every  condition  some  are  contented  and 
some  are  discontented.     The  amount  of  possessions    | 
seems  to  have  nothing  to  do  with  contentment.     A 
wage-earrxer^is  as  contented  and  happy  as  his  em-_ 
ployer.     I  recall  but  do  not  remember  a  poem  of 
Archbishop  Trench's,  to  the  effect  that  some  mur- 
mur when   a  single   cloud  is   in  a  clear  sky  and  / 
others  are  thankful  for  one  patch  of  blue  in  the 
darkened  heavens.     Now,  the  accepted  explanation 
of  this  well-known  fact  is  not,  I  think,  the  correct,^ 
or,  at  least,  is  not  the  complete  explanation.     C6ri-' 
tentment  is  due,  it  is  usually  said,  to  the  spirit  of 
the  person  and  not  to  the  abundance  of  the  things 
he  possesses,  or,  in  philosophical  terms,  it  is  subjec- , 
tive,  not  objective.     That  is  perfectly  true,  but  the 
explanation  assumes  that   a  person  of   the   right 
spirit  is  satisfied  with  what  he  has  and  asks  for 
nothing  more.     But  he  is  a  very  dull  and  stupid 
and  despicable  person  who  desires  nothing  more. 


7 


140  INEQUALITY  AND  PEOGEESS 

He  has  gone  to  seed.  The  correct  definition  is 
this  :  contentment  is  the  gaining  of  the  next  satis- 
faction that  is  really  desired.  The  workingman 
has  some  object  which  he  wishes  and  expects  to 
gain.  He  is  trying  to  maintain  a  life  insurance  of 
two  thousand  dollars,  or  to  carry  his  son  through 
a  textile  school,  or  to  buy  his  daughter  a  piano. 
See  the  contentment  and  delight  of  the  man  as  he 
is  attaining  those  objects.  They  are  the  natural 
extensions  of  his  life.  A  rich  man  is  contented  if 
he  is  succeeding  in  a  new  venture,  or  secures  a  val- 
uable picture  which  the  connoisseurs  have  been 
trying  to  get,  or  if  his  son  carries  off  the  honors  at 
graduation.  His  wife  is  contented  if  her  diplo- 
macy brings  about  a  good  match  for  her  daughter, 
or  if  her  paper  on  Browning  is  applauded  by  the 
literary  sorosis.  The  pursuit  and  attainment  of 
the  objects  which  lie  nearest  in  the  path  of  life 
contribute  reflexively  to  development  of  character. 
Certain  virtues  are  cultivated  in  the  workingman 
by  his  ambition  for  his  family.  Certain  refine- 
ments of  taste,  a  broader  and  keener  sagacity,  the 
pleasurable  sense  of  success,  are  added  to  the  per- 
sonality of  the  merchant  and  the  merchant's  wife. 
Paul  said  that  he  had  learned  the  secret  in  whatso- 
ever state  he  was  therewith  to  be  content.  It  was 
because  he  learned  that  in  any  outward  circum- 
stance he  could  further  the  objects  to  which  he 


THE  PEOGEESSION  OF  IDEALS  141 

was  passionately  devoted.  When  he  was  making 
tents  he  converted  into  Christians  Priscilla  and 
Aquila  who  worked  at  his  side.  When  he  was  in 
prison  at  Home  he  brought  some  soldiers  of  the 
pretorian  guard  into  the  Christian  life,  and  wrote 
epistles  which  became  part  of  the  world's  immortal 
literature.  When  he  was  shipwrecked  he  encour- 
aged the  frightened  passengers,  and  was  the  means 
of  saving  two  hundred  and  seventy-six  persons. 
This  same  philosopher  who  was  contented  in  any 
state  also  declared  that  he  was  always  forgetting 
the  things  behind  and  reaching  out  for  the  things 
before,  ever  pressing  towards  the  mark  of  the  prize 
of  a  high  calling.  But  that  was  the  very  reason 
he  could  be  content  in  any  outward  circumstance. 
Contentment  is  anything  but  stagnation  and  re- 
petition without  desire  for  more.  It  is  not,  indeed, 
restless.  It  is  serene,  calm,  and  satisfied,  just  be- 
cause it  is  ever  reaching  after  and  gaining  some 
new  and  worthy  end.  It  might  be  characterized 
as  a  state  of  moving  equilibrium.  A  ship  under 
sail  is  more  steady  than  a  ship  at  anchor.  Zeno's 
illustration  of  the  puzzle  of  motion  and  rest  might 
be  applied  to  the  moving  equilibrium  of  content- 
ment in  the  progression  of  ideals.  "The  flying 
arrow  rests, "  said  Zeno,  meaning  that  the  swiftest 
motion  is  from  one  state  of  rest  to  another  state  of 
rest,  or  is  successive  states  of  rest ;  that  nobody 


142  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

knows  how  a  stationary  body  can  get  into  motion 
nor  how  a  moving  body  can  stop  moving.  In  quite 
another  sense,  a  desire  speeding  to  its  aim  is  the 
desire  of  a  restful  and  satisfied  spirit.  Aimlessness 
is  restlessness.  'T  is  the  flying  arrow  that  rests. 
The  American  poet,  John  S.  Dwight,  well  says :  — 

"  Rest  is  not  quitting  the  busy  career; 
Rest  is  the  fitting  of  self  to  its  sphere: 
'T  is  the  brook's  motion,  clear  without  strife, 
Fleeing  to  ocean  after  its  life." 

^  I  Contentment,  then,  is  the  continuous  satisfaction 
of  new  wants.  It  is  the  second  kind  of  discontent 
described  in  the  sixteenth  section.  The  discontent 
of  ambition  is  the  contentment  of  satisfying  the 
new  wants  which  grow  out  of  old  wants.  The 
obvious  reason  for  the  disparity  between  circum- 
stance and  contentment  is  the  different  ambitions 
of  different  persons.  The  wants  of  one  man  are 
not  the  wants  of  another  man,  and  so  the  two  have 
different  ambitions.  A  beggar  does  not  want  dia- 
monds, though  he  may  think  he  wants  them.  If 
he  had  them  he  would  convert  them  into  money 
and  buy  the  things  he  really  wants.  The  working- 
man  does  not  want  a  masterpiece  of  Titian.  If 
he  had  it  he  would  sell  it,  and  from  the  proceeds 
would  buy  a  plot  of  land,  build  a  snug  little  house, 
and  mount  his  boys  and  girls  on  bicycles.  He 
would  realize  his  own  ideals.  Having  become  ac- 


THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS  143 

customed  to  them,  he  would  desire  other  things 
which  appeal  to  him  according  to  the  natural  pro- 
gression of  his  wants.  He  is  contented  in  the 
gradual  realization  of  ideals  which  the  rich  man 
Jong  ago  left  behind  and  the  scholar  never  had. 

All  who  make  progress,  whatever  possessions 
and  attainments  thgy  already  have,  must  put  forth 
strenuous  effort.  They  cannot  saunter  on,  but 
must  press  on  to  the  things  which  are  before.  In 
some  sense,  therefore,  life  is  a  struggle,  certainly 
for  all  who  make  appreciable  progress,  and  no  one 
should  expect  or  desire  to  escape  it.  Our  sympa- 
thies are  excited  by  the  hardships  of  laborers  who 
are  deprived  of  many  comforts.  If  we  knew  the 
hardships  and  self-denials  of  scores  of  instructors 
in  the  great  universities,  we  might  be  equally 
sympathetic.  The  instructor  has  a  family,  and  his 
salary  is  small.  He  must  live  in  a  respectable 
house  near  the  university,  must  dress  decently, 
must  maintain  his  family  in  keeping  with  their 
social  position,  must  have  books,  and  must  respond 
to  many  calls  of  associations  and  clubs.  Such 
men  and  their  wives  have  more  anxiety  about  ways 
and  means  than  the  majority  of  workingmen  have. 
But  they  practice  the  denials  cheerfully,  because 
they  prefer  their  work  and  life  to  any  other.  They 
are  neither  complaining  nor  envious.  They  do  not 
ask  for  sympathy.  If  a  man  has  an  ideal  which 


144  INEQUALITY  AND  PKOGKESS 

is  worthy,  we  do  not  pity  his  hardships  and  strug- 
gles unless  he  is  actually  suffering, 
y  Every  man  that  can  earn  his  living  has  some 
/  vantage  ground  from  which  he  can  reach  the  higher 
(  values.  Those  values  are  not  the  same  for  all. 
One  does  not  need  to  follow  all  the  tracks  of  an- 
other. One  earns  wealth  and  has  the  discipline 
of  his  labor.  Another  inherits  wealth  and  has  the 
discipline  of  study  and  culture.  Still  another  de- 
votes his  energies  to  teaching  or  preaching,  with 
small  compensation,  rather  than  to  mechanical  or 
mercantile  pursuits.  The  circumstance,  after  all, 
is  the  least  of  it.  Life,  indeed,  may  be  made  too 
easy.  Comfortable  and  luxurious  circumstances 
may  spoil  character  as  certainly  as  indiscriminate 
charity  may  pauperize  able-bodied  men  and  women. 
"  Even  in  a  palace  one  may  live  well ; "  but  the 
observation  marks  a  great  difficulty.  The  constant 
preachment  that  more  should  be  done  for  working 
people  may  lead  them  to  despise  the  possibilities 
that  are  open  to  their  own  thrift  and  ambition. 
The  severest  hardship  is  absence  of  some  incentive 
of  necessity. 

Let  every  one  always  be  making  advancement 
from  what  is  to  what  may  be,  according  to  his  own 

¥  circumstances  and  ability.  We  need  not  compare 
ourselves  with  others,  but  each  should  comjjftre  his 
actual  self  with  his  ideal  self,  and  follow  the  pro- 


THE  PROGRESSION  OF  IDEALS  145 

gression  of  his  own  true  and  right  ambitions. 
Professor  Jowett,  after  he  was  sixty  years  old,  fre- 
quently said  that  he  was  always  making  fresh 
beginnings.  "  I  always  seem  to  be  beginning  life 
again,  and  may  I  ever  seem  to  be  beginning  life 
again  until  the  end!  I  have  always  the  feeling 
that  I  have  lost  so  much  time  that  I  can  never 
have  a  holiday.  I  trust  that  during  the  last  ten 
years  I  may  work  only  from  the  highest  motives." 
Among  various  maxims  to  be  followed  on  the  ap- 
proach of  age,  by  a  man  of  sixty  years,  one  is : 
"  He  may  truly  think  of  the  last  years  of  life  as 
the  best,  and  of  every  year  as  better  than  the  last, 
if  he  knows  how  to  use  it."  1 

1  Life  and  Letters,  vol.  ii.  pp.  79,  111. 


XIX 

UNIQUENESS   AND  UNITY 

IN  these  days  much  complaint  is  made  about 
the  separation  and  antagonism  of  classes  in  society, 
and  effort  is  directed  towards  the  unifying  of  men. 
To  superficial  observation  equalizing  seems  the 
'condition  of  unity.  It  is  thought  that  the  more 
nearly  alike  men  are  in  circumstances  and  culture 
the  closer  will  be  their  union.  But,  in  fact,  unity 
depends  on  unlikeness.  Things  which  are  alike 
are  in  juxtaposition ;  things  which  are  unlike  unite 
to  form  a  whole.  Union  of  equals  is  a  process  in 
addition;  union  of  unequals  is  a  process  in  mul- 
tiplication. The  Hegelian  philosophy  finds  the 
unity  of  society  in  the  uniqueness  of  individuals. 
The  perfect  society  would  consist  of  perfect  indi- 
viduals, each  self-centred  and  unique.  One  writer 
says,  in  comment,  "  If,  on  one  side,  we  are  defective 
at  present  because  we  are  not  joined  closely  enough 
together,  we  are  defective,  on  the  other  side,  be- 
cause we  are  not  sufficiently  differentiated  apart." l 

1  Professor  J.  Ellis  McTaggart,  The  International  Journal  of 
Ethics,  July,  1897. 


UNIQUENESS  AND   UNITY  147 

This  relation  has  been  suggested  in  previous  sec- 
tions, but  is  now  re-stated  in  another  form,  and 
with  the  advantage  of  the  considerations  concern- 
ing variety  which  have  been  perceived. 

The  most  unique  men  are  the  most  universal 
in  relations  and  sympathies.  Shakespeare  stands 
alone  in  intellectual  greatness.  There  is  only  one 
Shakespeare.  But  his  distinction  is  his  human- 
ness.  He  sounds  the  entire  gamut  of  human 
thoughts,  hopes,  fears,  and  passions.  He  is  uni- 
versal. A  German  theologian  finds  the  unparal- 
leled power  of  Jesus  in  the  unlimited  range  of  his 
sympathies.  He  stands  apart  from  and  above  all 
men  in  greatness.  He  is  absolutely  unique.  He 
is,  as  Bushnell  said,  unclassifiable.  But  is  not 
his  uniqueness  this,  that  he  is  not  provincial,  local, 
and  narrow,  but  universal ;  that  he  knew  what  is  in 
man  as  no  other  has  known,  and  that  he  had  power 
of  sympathetic  union  with  men  and  women  of  any 
nation  and  any  religion?  He  whose  uniqueness 
made  him  the  Son  of  God  was  te  whose  univer- 
sality made  him  the  Son  of  man.  Dr.  Dorner 
therefore  lays  down  the  principle  that  the  unique- 
ness of  Jesus  is  his  universality.  The  greatness 
and  distinction  of  any  person  is  measured  by  his 
sympathetic  range.  An  educated  negro  who  re- 
cently read  "Uncle  Tom's  Cabin"  for  the  first 
time,  told  me  that  he  was  most  struck  with  Mrs. 


148  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

Stowe's  knowledge  of  the  feelings  and  thoughts  of 
people  belonging  to  another  race.  The  universal 
popularity  of  the  book  reveals  the  unique  power 
of  the  writer.  It  is  said  that  Hugh  Miller,  the 
geologist,  could  adapt  himself  to  all  sorts  of  peo- 
ple ;  that  he  would  trudge  along  the  high-road  with 
a  workingman,  and  make  the  man  feel  that  he  was 
conferring  a  favor  on  the  great  geologist  by  the 
companionship.  Paul  had  his  limitations.  He 
was  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews,  and  showed  that 
he  was  in  every  letter  he  wrote.  But  he  was  broad 
enough  to  accommodate  the  presentation  of  truth 
to  Jews  and  Greeks,  to  masters  and  slaves,  to  the 
strong  and  the  weak.  It  was  no  reproach  that  he 
was  all  things  to  all  men,  but  was  a  mark  of 
versatility  and  greatness.  He  was  unique  in  the 
possession  of  that  very  power.  A  small,  common- 
place man,  without  unique  characteristics,  is  one 
thing  to  all  men.  He  is  read  at  a  glance.  He 
shows  his  one  side,  or  perchance  two  sides,  to  every 
one  on  first  acquaintance.  This  is  true  of  men  as 
they  actually  are:  that  the  small  men,  who  are 
nearly  alike,  have  fewest  points  of  union  with 
others ;  that  the  great  men,  who  are  unlike,  have 
many  points  of  union  with  others ;  that  the  unity 
of  society  is  conditioned  on  the  uniqueness  of  un- 
like individuals,  and  that  unity  is  therefore  the 
very  opposite  of  homogeneity  and  uniformity. 


UNIQUENESS  AND   UNITY  149 

We  may  now  advance  a  step  farther  in  the  same 
direction.  As  society  makes  progress,  individuals 
become  more,  not  less  unique.  The  higher  unity 
is  a  more  complex  variety.  We  therefore  perceive 
that  the  ideals  of  persons  are  more  unique  than 
the  actual  persons ;  that,  if  individuals  should  be- 
come their  true  and  best  selves,  they  would  be 
more  and  more  original  in  distinctive  uniqueness. 
This  tendency  can  be  marked  in  observed  improve- 
ment and  retrogression.  As  persons  go  down  the 
scale  they  become  alike.  Vice,  for  example,  tends 
to  sameness.  It  degrades,  we  say  ;  that  is,  it  grades 
down.  A  gallery  of  rogues,  while  the  faces  are 
somewhat  unlike,  shows  the  same  coarse,  sinister, 
brutal  expression  in  all  the  pictures.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  gallery  of  fair  women  presents  variety  of 
type.  You  look  at  one  face  and  exclaim  with  de- 
light. You  look  at  another  face  and  exclaim  again 
with  delight.  Yet  they  are  very  unlike.  One  is 
all  smiles,  sweetness,  gracefulness  ;  the  other  is  all 
dignity,  reserve,  graciousness.  Vice  and  ignorance 
tend  to  sameness;  beauty  and  virtue  tend  to  va- 
riety. If,  now,  this  should  be  followed  out,  it 
would  be  seen,  as  I  said,  that  the  ideals  of  per- 
sons, their  perfect  selves,  are  more  unlike  than  the 
actual  selves ;  that,  as  each  develops  according  to 
his  own  type,  he  becomes  more,  not  less,  distinctive. 
Whatever  the  uniqueness  of  any  person,  it  will 


150  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

be  developed  to  the  utmost ;  and  everybody,  after 
all,  is  unique  in  some  respect.  Dr.  Holmes  said 
that  the  most  commonplace  life  has  material  enough 
to  make  a  three-volume  novel.  In  fact,  one  school 
of  novelists  makes  interesting  stories  by  photo- 
graphing with  fidelity  the  most  commonplace  char- 
acters, on  the  assumption  that  there  are  vast  pos- 
sibilities in  every  life.  Let  those  possibilities  be 
realized,  and  ordinary  persons  would  have  unique 
interest  and  charm.  Every  one,  if  you  please,  is 
an  original  idea  of  God's.  He  sees  the  man  in 
the  child,  the  ideal  man  in  the  actual  man ;  and  he 
does  not  repeat  himself.  We  see  that  idea,  each 
for  himself,  as  we  study  our  tastes  and  aptitudes, 
as  we  choose  and  succeed  in  the  pursuits  which  are 
congenial,  as  we  cultivate  ourselves  along  the  lines 
of  our  characteristics  and  endowments.  Here  is 
the  truth  of  the  old  doctrine  of  Creationism.  It  is 
the  doctrine  that  each  soul  coming  into  the  world 
is  a  fresh  and  immediate  creation  of  God's.  The 
belief  was  entertained  when  heredity  was  not  as 
well  understood  as  it  is  now.  But  the  truth  for 
which  the  doctrine  stood  is  apparent  in  the  diver- 
sity of  individuals,  even  of  those  who  have  the 
same  heredity.  A  curious  notion  of  a  French 
writer,  Godet,  is  the  fancy  that  there  are  three 
grades  of  beings,  —  animals,  men,  and  angels,  — 
which  are  distinguished  by  the  relative  degrees  of 


UNIQUENESS   AND   UNITY  151 

heredity  and  individuality.  Animals,  he  thinks, 
are  almost  exact  reproductions  of  their  kind.  The 
species  is  continued  with  but  slight  variations. 
Men  are  under  the  laws  of  heredity,  but  individu- 
ality is  more  marked.  Angels,  who  neither  marry 
nor  are  given  in  marriage,  are  not  the  products  of 
heredity,  but  are  direct  creations  of  distinct  indi- 
viduality. Such  a  view,  although  fanciful,  has  a 
certain  justification  in  the  observed  facts  of  differ- 
entiated human  nature,  and  in  the  tendency  of 
progress  to  make  persons  more  and  more  unlike. 
When  we  reach  our  ideals  (symbolized  as  angels 
in  heaven),  each  of  us  will  be  perfectly  unique. 
There  will  be  no  monotony  in  heaven.  But  ideal 
persons,  like  the  angels  of  God,  will  be  all  the 
more  capable  of  intellectual  and  sympathetic  union 
with  one  another.  There  is  more  joy  in  the  pre- 
sence of  pure  and  spotless  angels  than  in  the  pre- 
sence of  impure  and  tainted  men  over  a  sinner  that 
repenteth. 

Unity,  then,  is  anything  but  uniformity.  It  is 
possible  only  in  variety,  and  is  realized  through 
the  reciprocal  functions  of  differentiated  persons. 
Nothing  is  so  tiresome  as  unbroken  uniformity, 
whether  it  is  seven  English  sisters  dressed  exactly 
alike,  or  Chinese  music  drummed  out  on  tom-toms, 
or  an  interminable  plain  traversed  for  weeks  on 
horseback  or  even  for  days  on  a  railway  train,  or 


152  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

any  other  unvarying  repetition.  Nothing  is  so 
pleasing  as  unity  and  harmony  in  variety.  In 
dress,  variety  and  contrast  reflect  good  taste.  It 
will  be  a  grateful  relief  when  the  evening  dress  of 
gentlemen  exhibits  diversity,  as  already  morning 
costumes  allow  knickerbockers  and  colors.  Music 
exists  by  combinations  and  contrasts,  even  by  occa- 
sional discords.  Flowers  and  music  are  as  unlike 
as  the  eye  and  the  ear  which  perceive  them,  yet  go 
so  well  together  that  certain  tones  suggest  certain 
flowers,  or  at  least  certain  colors,  to  some  minds. 
Travelers  on  the  plains  rejoice  when  they  pass 
among  mountains  and  skirt  the  banks  of  rivers. 

Uniqueness,  of  course,  depends  on  unity  with 
others  as  truly  as  unity  depends  on  variety.  The 
health  of  every  member  and  the  health  of  the 
whole  organism  depend  on  the  exercise  of  the  ap- 
propriate function  of  each  organ  in  giving  and 
receiving.  The  hand  is  a  distinct  and  wonderful 
member  of  the  body ;  but  a  hand  severed  from  the 
arm  is  a  hand  no  longer ;  it  must  receive  from  the 
whole  body  and  do  its  work  in  the  body  to  be  a 
hand  at  all ;  and  the  body  deprived  of  the  hand  is 
maimed  and  incomplete.  The  leaf  of  a  rose  after 
it  is  pulled  out  is  not  a  living  leaf,  but  is  already 
decomposing  as  it  falls  from  your  hand  to  the 
ground;  and  the  rose  minus  a  single  leaf  is  an 
imperfect  flower  with  all  its  petals  loosened.  So  a 


UNIQUENESS  AND   UNITY  153 

man  is  not  a  true  man  unless  he  is  in  vital  relation 
with  his  fellow  men  in  the  great  social  body  of  many 
members,  in  the  consummate  flower  of  a  symmet- 
rical humanity  with  its  manifold  and  different 
functions. 

It  is  the  middle  term  of  the  eighteenth  century 
watchword  which  needs  revision,  and  the  middle 
term  only.  Had  it  been  liberty,  inequality,  frater- 
nity, or  liberty,  individuality,  fraternity,  it  might 
not  have  been  resonant  enough  for  popular  shout- 
ing and  echo,  but  the  first  and  third  terms  would 
have  had  some  chance  of  realization.  Inequality 
without  liberty  and  fraternity  is  indeed  an  evil. 
But  essential  equality  would  destroy  personal  free- 
dom, and  would  leave  as  much  fraternity  as  a  man 
enjoys  when  he  looks  at  himself  in  a  mirror.  Lib- 
erty and  fraternity  are  possible  only  through  the 
variety  of  coordination  and  reciprocity,  which  is 
anything  but  equality.  Heal  freedom  is  enjoyed  . 
when  one  has  scope  for  the  exercise  of  one's  own 
individual  powers,  as  a  machine  plays  freely  when 
it  acts  according  to  the  peculiar  law  of  its  struc- 
ture, and  labors  when  it  is  geared  to  connections 
too  great  or  too  small  for  its  service  of  foot-pounds. 
Fraternity  is  mutual  service  in  variety  of  functions, 
from  interchange  of  commodities  to  interchange  of 
thought.  The  exchange  of  ten  bushels  of  wheat 
for  ten  bushels  of  wheat  is  not  commerce.  Econo- 


154  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

inic  reciprocity  is  exchange  of  ten  bushels  of  wheat 
for  a  coat.  Inequality  is  the  middle  term  which 
gives  personal  liberty  on  one  side  and  social  fra- 
ternity on  the  other  side.  Liberty  and  fraternity, 
like  peace  and  righteousness,  meet  together  and 
kiss  each  other  when  every  one  exercises  his  pecul- 
iar gift  in  service  of  production  and  in  reception 
of  the  various  service  of  others.  The  gift  itself 
is  developed  in  its  use  for  others.  In  selfish  use 
of  power  there  can  be  no  greatness.  Liberty  is 
gained  by  rendering  the  largest  service  willingly. 
Thus  there  is  scope  for  development  and  a  career  is 
opened  to  talents.  Conversely,  the  very  conscious- 
ness and  exercise  of  ability  in  promoting  the  com- 
mon welfare  and  happiness  strengthen  the  frater- 
nal spirit.  Thus  the  highest  unity  is  the  reciprocity 
of  unique  individuals. 


XX 

CHRISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY 

DEMOCRACY  and  Christianity  have,  in  important 
respects,  a  common  task :  to  secure  to  every  indi- 
vidual his  right,  to  realize  for  every  individual  his 
worth.  Both  reach  out  and  reach  down  to  the  low- 
est, so  that  every  man  shall  be  integral  part  of  the 
whole.  Democracy  makes  every  man  a  citizen. 
Christianity  makes  every  man  a  member  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  No  one  residing  within  the  limits 
of  a  nation  is  to  be  excluded  from  the  rights  and 
privileges  of  citizenship.  No  one  within  the  limits 
of  humanity  is  to  be  excluded  from  the  realization 
of  his  own  worth.  Regarded  as  citizens  or  as  chil- 
dren of  God,  all  men  are  essentially  equal.  There 
are  common  experiences  of  affection,  sympathy, 
sorrow,  faith,  as  there  is  a  common  loyalty  of  all 
citizens  in  a  nationality.  On  this  basis  men  are 
much  alike.  The  grief  of  a  laborer  who  stands  by 
the  dead  body  of  his  child  commands  the  respect 
and  sympathy  of  his  employer  who  knows  the  same 
experience  and  who  silently  presses  the  hand  of  the 
sufferer.  "  One  touch  of  nature  makes  the  whole 


156  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

world  kin."  A  great  company  of  worshipers  are 
stirred  by  the  same  emotions.  One  speaker,  pre- 
senting the  high  themes,  the  duties  and  the  aspira- 
tions of  religion,  sways  the  minds  of  a  thousand 
listeners  as  if  they  were  one  person,  as  an  orator 
moves  a  vast  audience  of  the  most  dissimilar  indi- 
viduals by  appeal  to  patriotism.  The  sculptor  de- 
picts the  very  same  emotion  and  purpose  on  the 
dusky  faces  of  negro  soldiers  as  he  brings  out  on 
the  determined  countenance  of  their  cultivated 
commander.  In  one  sense,  and  perhaps  the  lar- 
gest sense,  democracy  stands  for  the  basal  equality 
of  all  citizens.  In  one  sense,  and  perhaps  the 
largest  sense,  Christianity  stands  for  the  immortal 
worth  of  all  men  as  children  of  God  and  brethren 
in  one  family. 

These  interests  of  democracy  and  of  Christian- 
ity are  among  the  great  interests  of  humanity. 
When  the  aims  and  progress  of  democracy  are 
perceived  they  seem  to  be  occupied  with  the  equal- 
ity of  citizens.  The  gospel,  in  one  view  of  it,  has 
the  one  aim  of  bringing  all  men  equally  to  their 
right  and  worth.  Concerning  all  this  there  need 
be,  there  can  be,  no  question.  It  would  be  inter- 
esting to  follow  the  course  of  democracy  reclaim- 
ing to  citizenship  man  after  man,  class  after  class ; 
and  to  follow  Christianity  as  it  has  given  slaves 
their  freedom  and  women  their  equal  place  with 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY         157 

men,  as  it  has  gone  down  and  out  to  the  heathen, 
the  outside  peoples,  to  every  class,  rank,  condition, 
with  its  one  great  sufficient,  human  salvation,  cre- 
ating the  holy  church  throughout  all  the  world ; 
and  to  recognize  the  mutual  action  of  Christian- 
ity and  democracy  in  their  universalizing  work. 
These  facts,  with  which  we  started,  are  repeated 
that  there  may  be  no  mistake  concerning  the  equal- 
ities and  the  inequalities  of  men. 

But  the  universalizing  function  of  these  two 
great  moral  powers  is  not  undiscriminating.  They 
do  not  profess  to  make  all  men  equal  in  all  respects. 
Both  emphasize  the  variety  of  human  endowments 
and  functions,  as  giving  the  possibility  of  national 
and  of  Christian  unity.  Democracy  brings  the 
strong  into  the  service  of  the  weak,  and  thus  is 
able  to  raise  the  lowest  man.  It  dethrones  an  aris- 
tocracy which  exists  only  to  exact  the  service  and 
homage  of  the  weak.  It  impresses  the  best  talents 
into  the  service  of  the  State,  and  requires  of  the 
least  their  support  and  the  product  of  their  indus- 
try. It  would  not  and  cannot  do  away  with  dis- 
tinctions of  great  and  less,  but  makes  greatness 
the  measure  of  service,  while  it  excuses  no  man 
from  the  little  he  can  do  because  it  is  little.  Thus 
it  promotes  civilization  and  guarantees  its  own  per- 
petuity. A  nation  is  a  unity  in  variety,  not  an 
interminable  series  of  identical  men. 


158  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

It  is  the  language  of  Christianity  which  has  just 
been  applied  with  entire  appropriateness  to  demo- 
cracy. Jesus  had  almost  as  much  to  say  about  the 
differences  as  about  the  common  salvation  of  men. 
He  spoke  of  those  who  are  great,  but  gave  no  inti- 
mation that  they  ought  to  reduce  their  superiority 
to  a  common  level.  The  use  and  misuse  of  great- 
ness were  his  only  concern.  The  great  ones  among 
the  nations  lorded  it  over  the  inferior.  "  It  shall 
not  be  so  among  you,"  Jesus  said  to  his  disciples. 
But  he  did  not  say  that  they  were  to  abdicate  such 
greatness  as  they  had.  They  were  to  use  it  in  min- 
istration to  those  who,  because  they  need  such  ser- 
vice, are  not  great.  On  the  other  hand,  the  widow 
is  not  to  withhold  her  mite  because  it  is  not  equal  to 
the  wealth  of  those  who  cast  in  of  their  abundance. 
The  woman  who  anointed  Jesus'  feet  was  com- 
mended because  she  did  what  she  could.  There 
was  no  measure,  in  either  case,  of  less  or  more,  but 
only  the  measure  of  ability.  The  parable  of  the 
talents  is  based  on  the  unequal  endowments  of 
men,  and  the  man  who  came  under  condemnation 
was  the  man  who  did  not  use  the  little  he  had. 
The  parable  of  the  pounds  is  based  on  the  un- 
equal use  of  equal  endowments.  All  had  the  same 
amount,  one  pound  each,  but  increments  varied 
from  ten  pounds  to  nothing.  Both  these  parables, 
which  are  probably  different  reports  of  the  same 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY        159 

parable,  emphasize  inequality ;  one  in  respect  to 
endowment,  the  other  in  respect  to  increment. 
Both,  therefore,  are  true  to  life,  for  men  are  un- 
equal not  only  in  native  ability,  but  also  in  the  use 
of  the  same  talents.  Faithfulness  to  one's  own  self 
in  use  of  what  one  has  is  the  lesson  of  both  para- 
bles. 

Paul  teaches  explicitly  that  unity  consists  in 
variety.  The  members  of  the  body  are  not  only 
numerous  but  also  are  different,  and  in  the  differ- 
ences or  variety  is  the  unity.  So  the  Church  is  one 
body  of  many  members.  All  grades  and  kinds  of 
power  are  enumerated,  from  apostleship  down  to 
any  least  helpfulness,  such  as  hospitality.  More- 
over, peculiar  gifts  are  developed  in  their  pecul- 
iarity by  exercise  in  the  great  united  society,  and 
in  ministration  to  the  diverse  needs  of  mankind. 
Every  gift  or  function  is  to  be  exercised  in  its  own 
best  and  peculiar  way :  giving  is  to  be  with  sim- 
plicity of  motive ;  mercy  is  to  be  shown  with  cheer- 
fulness ;  prophecy,  that  is  preaching,  is  to  be  ac- 
cording to  the  proportion  of  faith,  not  less  nor 
more  than  the  preacher  really  believes ;  and  love 
is  to  be  without  dissimulation.  Each  characteristic 
gift  is  to  be  exercised  characteristically.  No  man 
is  to  think  of  himself  more  highly  than  he  ought 
to  think,  but  is  to  think  of  himself  soberly,  that  is, 
correctly,  neither  overestimating  nor  underestimat- 


160  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

ing  himself.  Every  member  is  humbled  by  the 
knowledge  that  he  is  only  a  single  part  of  the 
great  social  unity,  but  in  that  many-sided  relation 
his  power  of  service  is  multiplied  by  many  other 
factors.  These  discriminating  and  inspiring  con- 
ceptions flow  forth  from  and  flow  back  into  the 
one  noble  conception  of  unity  in  variety,  which  has 
a  concise  and  suggestive  expression  unsurpassed  in 
literature :  "  For  even  as  we  have  many  members 
in  one  body,  and  all  the  members  have  not  the 
same  office:  so  we,  who  are  many,  are  one  body 
in  Christ,  and  severally  members  one  of  another." 
Unity  in  variety  is  a  favorite  thought  of  the  apos- 
tle. He  impresses  it  on  almost  every  church  to 
which  he  writes.  The  thought  is  so  true  and  so 
characteristic  of  Christianity  at  work  that  I  can- 
not refrain  from  quoting  entire  another  fine  pas- 
sage :  "  Now  there  are  diversities  of  gifts,  but  the 
same  Spirit.  And  there  are  diversities  of  minis- 
trations, and  the  same  Lord.  And  there  are  diver- 
sities of  workings,  but  the  same  God,  who  worketh 
all  things  in  all.  But  to  each  one  is  given  the 
manifestation  of  the  Spirit  to  profit  withal.  For 
to' one  is  given  through  the  Spirit  the  word  of 
wisdom;  and  to  another  the  word  of  knowledge, 
according  to  the  same  Spirit :  to  another  faith,  in 
the  same  Spirit ;  and  to  another  gifts  of  healings, 
in  the  one  Spirit;  and  to  another  workings  of 


CHRISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY         161 

miracles ;  and  to  another  prophecy ;  and  to  another 
discernings  of  spirits :  to  another  divers  kinds  of 
tongues;  and  to  another  the  interpretation  of 
tongues:  but  all  these  worketh  the  one  and  the 
same  Spirit,  dividing  to  each  one  severally  even 
as  he  will."  Why  are  men  so  different,  so  un- 
equal ?  Why  is  one  an  apostle,  and  another  only 
a  healer  ?  That  question  will  never  be  answered. 
The  Spirit  divides  to  each  one  severally,  even  as 
He  will.  But  otherwise  there  would  be  dull,  tame, 
monotonous  uniformity,  instead  of  beautiful,  har- 
monious unity.  So  the  healer  heals  and  the  apos- 
tle preaches.  The  law  of  earth  is  the  law  of  the 
heavens.  As  there  is  a  terrestrial  so  there  is  a 
celestial  unity  in  variety.  There  is  one  glory  of 
the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the  moon,  and  an- 
other glory  of  the  stars;  for  one  star  differeth 
from  another  star  in  glory.  So  also  is  the  resur- 
rection of  the  dead. 

Nowhere  in  the  New  Testament  is  there  the 
faintest  intimation  that  the  kingdom  on  earth  or 
in  heaven  is  to  be  composed  of  persons  who  were 
made  equal  or  have  become  equal.  In  fact,  there 
is  to  be  release  from  the  apparent  and  artificial 
samenesses  by  which  men  had  been  classified  in 
nations  and  classes,  and  individuality  is  to  have  its 
perfect  and  ample  development  through  knowledge, 
faith,  hope,  and  love.  Class,  caste,  sex,  and  na- 


162  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

tionality  are  not  the  distinctive  marks;  but  the 
individual  stands  out,  his  own  unique  self,  making 
the  most  and  the  best  of  himself,  after  the  pattern 
of  Christ,  and  through  the  reciprocities  of  Christian 
unity  in  variety.  The  higher  unity  transcends 
the  lower  unity.  "  There  can  be  neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,  there  can  be  neither  bond  nor  free,  there 
can  be  no  male  and  female ;  for  ye  all  are  one  man 
in  Christ  Jesus."  And  yet,  the  higher  sympa- 
thetic unity  does  not  destroy  the  lower  unities  of 
nationality,  sex,  class,  and  kindred  tastes.  The 
seer  on  Patmos  had  a  vision  of  the  perfected,  har- 
monious society,  standing  before  a  great  throne 
and  with  one  voice,  as  the  voice  of  many  waters, 
ascribing  salvation  to  God.  He  observed  that  they 
were  out  of  every  nation,  and  of  all  tribes  and 
peoples  and  tongues.  Characteristic  marks  of  na- 
tionality and  speech  remained.  He  does  not  say 
that  they  once  belonged  to  different  nations  and 
tribes,  but  had  become  indistinguishable.  He 
noticed  the  differences  and  reported  them.  The 
universal  kingdom  was  seen  to  be  a  unity  in  vari- 
ety. 

A  very  good  argument  could  be  made  to  the 
effect  that  the  doctrine  of  election  is  the  calling  of 
nations  and  individuals  to  the  exercise  of  their 
peculiar  functions.  The  elect  are  the  select  — 
those  selected  according  to  fitness  for  their  place 


CHEISTIANITY  AND  INEQUALITY        163 

and  work  in  that  kingdom  which  is  universal,  be- 
cause it  is  capacious  of  all  gifts,  endowments,  and 
talents  in  the  reciprocal  services  of  knowledge  and 
of  love. 

The  opinions  which  have  been  advanced  in  this 
volume  are,  I  believe,  in  the  main  correct.  They 
have  been  fortified  by  facts  drawn  from  many 
sources.  I  said  at  the  start  that  I  am  not  con- 
cerned about  the  applications  of  my  conclusions  to 
social  schemes.  All  social  theories  must  reckon 
with  the  almost  infinite  diversity  of  human  nature. 
The  impulse  at  the  heart  of  socialism  is  a  good  and 
humane  impulse.  So  is  the  impulse  at  the  heart  of 
individualism.  Some  so-called  socialists,  when  they 
pass  from  the  general  to  the  specific,  admit  the 
facts  which  have  been  pointed  out,  and  are  scarcely 
to  be  distinguished  from  those  who  oppose  and 
deride  socialism.  All,  by  whatever  name  they 
may  be  called,  all  who  would  promote  the  welfare 
and  advancement  of  their  fellow  men,  should  re- 
duce the  unknown  quantities  of  large  social  equa- 
tions to  the  lowest  concrete  terms.  The  inequal- 
ity of  variety  is  not  merely  a  stubborn  fact  which 
must  be  set  over  against  vague  notions  of  equality, 
nor  is  it  simply  the  inevitable  against  which  it  is 
useless  to  contend.  It  is  a  fact  to  be  welcomed,  a 
fact  on  which  the  hope  of  progress  firmly  rests. 


164  INEQUALITY  AND  PROGRESS 

From  first  to  last  this  essay  has  been  simply  an 
illustration  of  that  variety  which  gives  the  harmo- 
nious, sympathetic,  and  mutually  helpful  unity  of 


men. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWED 


LOAN  DEPT. 


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